Granular Materials

The aim of our research is to study granular materials (such as sand) via computer simulation, with a view to looking at the interior of a sample of flowing sand, something that is hard to do in experiments.

In a static packing of sand, the distribution of stress is very inhomogeneous, and much of the stress is transmitted to the walls. A large part of the load is borne by particles organized into force chains; the resulting distribution of forces is only exponentially small at large forces. Recent experiments done at Smith College and UMass (click here for the UMass group's website) also find an exponential distribution of forces in the flowing state. The question is whether the notion of force chains can be generalized to the flowing system.

Research Projects available:

Analyze the distribution of forces and stresses in an existing simulation of sand flowing under the influence of gravity. This work is a collaboration with Prof. Bulbul Chakraborty of Brandeis University and her student Allison Ferguson.

During Summer 2003, Anna-Lisa Baksmaty and Jodi McKenzie worked with me on this project as part of the Cascade Summer Research Mentoring program (see below).