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arXiv · 1505.06626

What determines static force chains in stressed granular media?

Oleg Gendelman·Yoav G. Pollack·Itamar Procaccia·Shiladitya Sengupta·Jacques Zylberg
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Abstract

The determination of the normal and transverse (frictional) inter-particle forces within a granular medium is a long standing, taunting, and yet unresolved problem. We present a new formalism which employs the knowledge of the external forces and the orientations of contacts between particles (of any given sizes), to compute all the inter-particle forces. Having solved this problem we exemplify the efficacy of the formalism showing that the force chains in such systems are determined by an expansion in the eigenfunctions of a newly defined operator.

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Oleg Gendelman, Yoav G. Pollack, Itamar Procaccia, Shiladitya Sengupta, Jacques Zylberg. 2016-02-21. What determines static force chains in stressed granular media?. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.116.078001

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