Abstract
It has been contemplated for a long time that dense granular materials flow in a stick-slip manner, and large fluctuations in the stresses are associated with it. However, the particle scale mechanics for this type of macroscopic motion has not been understood so far. We have analyzed the time evolution of contact networks from particle dynamics simulations and found that the rate of change of elastic energy of the packing can distinguish the stick regimes and the slip events. The isostatic criterion (number of contacts for a minimally stable particle) has been used to construct a cascade failure mechanism which reveals that the effect of the random breaking of contacts due to applied shear can be system-spanning for some cases. The size of the cascade failures follows a power law that explains experimentally observed large fluctuations is stresses. We expect that this power law distribution can connect the microstructure of a granular packing to its mechanical response.
Highlights
It has been contemplated for a long time that dense granular materials flow in a stick-slip manner, and large fluctuations in the stresses are associated with it
It has been hypothesized that when dense granular mate- ordination number z must be 2d for frictionless particles, rial is sheared, it flows during quick slip events separated and it must be d + 1 for frictional particles [7], where d is by relatively long stick regimes
We found that the fluctuations in shear stress and elastic energy are correlated and indicative of the emergence of a macroscopic stick-slip motion where the shear stress and the elastic energy increase monotonically in stick regimes and decrease rapidly in slip events
Summary
It has been contemplated for a long time that dense granular materials flow in a stick-slip manner, and large fluctuations in the stresses are associated with it. The abundance of granular matter in nature and its wide applications in industries have inspired a large number of 2 Cascade Failure Mechanism studies to understand and predict its response to applied shear. It has been hypothesized that when dense granular mate- ordination number z must be 2d for frictionless particles, rial is sheared, it flows during quick slip events separated and it must be d + 1 for frictional particles [7], where d is by relatively long stick regimes.
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