Shocking sand: Granular materials under extreme conditions

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• James Perry, SMF Group, Cavendish Laboratory
• Thursday 12 March 2015, 16:00-17:00
• Mott Seminar Room, Cavendish Laboratory.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Stephen Walley.

Physics tends to deal with point particles, continua, repeating patterns, neat formulae and symmetries. Granular systems sit in the awkward middle ground – grains are too complex and too numerous to model individually, yet too large and too few to be called a continuum. As such, they are a treasure trove for experimentalists, as feeding phenomenological models with the right data is still arguably our best route forward.

Looking at the very high-rate response of granular systems is fruitful both as an applied exercise, with applications ranging from earthquakes and asteroid impacts to defence, and as a purely scientific endeavour. At very high stresses, the complexities of compaction behaviour can be ignored, and standard thermodynamics describes the system rather well. Therefore, by gradually reducing the compaction stress and strain rate, we may have a handle for gradually ‘turning on’ the huge range of interconnected phenomena associated with granular systems.

This talk is part of the Physics and Chemistry of Solids Group series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Cavendish Laboratory Seminars
• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise
• Featured lists
• ME Seminar
• Mott Seminar Room, Cavendish Laboratory
• Neurons, Fake News, DNA and your iPhone: The Mathematics of Information
• Physics and Chemistry of Solids Group
• School of Physical Sciences
• Thin Film Magnetic Talks

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