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Mesoscopic properties of dense granular materials: An overview

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Abstract

A granular material is a conglomeration of discrete solid particles. It is intrinsically athermal because its dynamics always occur far from equilibrium. In highly excited gaseous states, it can safely be assumed that only binary interactions occur and a number of kinetic theories have been successfully applied. However, for granular flows and solidlike states, the theory is still poorly understood because of the internally correlated structures, such as particle clusters and force networks. The current theory is that the mesoscale characteristics define the key differences between granular materials and homogeneous solid materials. Widespread interest in granular materials has arisen among physicists, and significant progress has been made, especially in understanding the jamming phase diagram and the characteristics of the jammed phase. In this paper, the underlying physics of the mesoscale structure is discussed in detail. A multiscale framework is then proposed for dense granular materials.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Qicheng Sun & Feng Jin

  2. Physics Department, University of Science and Technology of Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

    Guohua Zhang

Authors
  1. Qicheng Sun
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  2. Feng Jin
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  3. Guohua Zhang
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Correspondence to Qicheng Sun.

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Sun, Q., Jin, F. & Zhang, G. Mesoscopic properties of dense granular materials: An overview. Front. Struct. Civ. Eng. 7, 1–12 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11709-013-0184-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11709-013-0184-z

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