Shear- and vibration-induced order-disorder transitions in granular media

By molecular dynamics simulations we investigate the order-disorder transitions induced in granular media by an applied drive combining vibrations and shear. As the steady state is attained, the pack is found in disordered configurations for comparatively high intensities of the drive; conversely, ordering and packing fractions exceeding the random close packing are found when vibrations and shear are weak. As forcing amplitudes get smaller, we find diverging time scales in the dynamics, as the system enters a jamming region. Under this perspective, our picture supports the intuition that externally applied forcing has, in driven granular media, a role similar to temperature in thermal systems.     

A rheological phase diagram of additives for cement formulations

A detailed rheological study of aqueous solutions of methylhydroxyethylcellulose has been carried out in the presence of different acrylate-based graft polymer used as additive contents. Both polymer components are used in cement formulations to improve the flow performances of the concretes, but no physicochemical studies can be easily found in the literature. The content of the graft polymer has been varied between 0.1 and 2.7 wt% in an aqueous solution with a fixed content of 6.5 wt% of methylhydroxyethylcellulose. Creep curves were performed at different stresses in order to build up the flow curves for the various solutions. We found that the addition of the graft polymer triggers a phase transition, which is made more dramatic by the presence of an external flow. A “flow-phase diagram” has been obtained, which could be used as a guide for determining the critical conditions for the onset of the flow-induced instability.     

Rheology of sheared monodisperse granular suspensions

Sheared granular suspensions can either flow or be jammed. They show as well a ‘melting’ transition: partially ordered flowing states are found which can be melted into fully disordered arrangements of grains by sufficient shear. While these are well documented phenomena, the underlying mechanisms and their control parameters are still far from clear. Via Molecular Dynamics simulations, we study the rheology of a model system of sheared frictional monodisperse granular materials [7, 8]. In particular, we aim to understand the nature of a critical line separating crystallised and melted states and the “jammed” region in the phase diagram. We outline as well connections and differences with thermal glass formers and colloidal suspensions.     

Flow, ordering, and jamming of sheared granular suspensions

We study the rheological properties of a granular suspension subject to constant shear stress by constant volume molecular dynamics simulations. We derive the system "flow diagram" in the volume fraction or stress plane (phi, F): at low phi the flow is disordered, with the viscosity obeying a Bagnold-like scaling only at small F and diverging as the jamming point is approached; if the shear stress is strong enough, at higher phi an ordered flow regime is found, the order-disorder transition being marked by a sharp drop of the viscosity. A broad jamming region is also observed where, in analogy with the glassy region of thermal systems, slow dynamics followed by kinetic arrest occurs when the ordering transition is prevented.     

Glass-glass transition and new dynamical singularity points in an analytically solvable p-spin glasslike model

We introduce and analytically study a generalized p-spin glasslike model that captures some of the main features of attractive glasses, recently found by mode coupling investigations, such as a glass-glass transition line and dynamical singularity points characterized by a logarithmic time dependence of the relaxation. The model also displays features not predicted by the mode coupling scenario that could further describe the attractive glasses behavior, such as aging effects with new dynamical singularity points ruled by logarithmic laws or the presence of a glass spinodal line.     

Shear instabilities in granular mixtures

Dynamical instabilities in fluid mechanics are responsible for a variety of important common phenomena, such as waves on the sea surface or Taylor vortices in Couette flow. In granular media dynamical instabilities have just begun to be discovered. Here we show by means of molecular dynamics simulation the existence of a new dynamical instability of a granular mixture under oscillating horizontal shear, which leads to the formation of a striped pattern where the components are segregated. We investigate the properties of such a Kelvin-Helmholtz-like instability and show how it is connected to pattern formation in granular flow and segregation.     

Universal fluctuations in correlated systems

The probability density function (PDF) of a global measure in a large class of highly correlated systems has been suggested to be of the same functional form. Here, we identify the analytical form of the PDF of one such measure, the order parameter in the low temperature phase of the 2D XY model. We demonstrate that this function describes the fluctuations of global quantities in other correlated equilibrium and nonequilibrium systems. These include a coupled rotor model, Ising and percolation models, models of forest fires, sandpiles, avalanches, and granular media in a self-organized critical state. We discuss the relationship with both Gaussian and extremal statistics.     

Statistical properties and universality in earthquake and solar flare occurrence

Earthquakes are phenomena of great complexity, however some simple general laws govern the statistics of their occurrence. Some of these most important laws exhibit scale invariance, as the Gutenberg-Richter law and the Omori law. The origin of these scaling behaviours is not yet fully understood and a natural fondamental question concerns the existence of these features also in other complex phenomena. A direct inspection of experimental catalogues has shown that the stochastic processes underlying solar flare and earthquake occurrence have universal properties. Another intensively debated question is the existence of correlations between magnitudes of subsequent earthquakes. Our recent analysis of the Southern California Catalogue has shown that non-zero magnitude correlations exist. A branching model based on a dynamical scaling hypothesis, relating magnitude to time, reproduces the hierarchical organization in time and magnitude of events and the observed magnitude correlations.