• DOI:10.1209/0295-5075/98/44008
• Corpus ID: 56032244

Particle shape dependence in 2D granular media

@article{SaintCyr2012ParticleSD,
  title={Particle shape dependence in 2D granular media},
  author={Baptiste Saint-Cyr and Krzysztof Szarf and Charles Voivret and Emilien Az'ema and Vincent Richefeu and Jean-Yves Delenne and Ga{\"e}l Combe and C{\'e}cile Nouguier-Lehon and Paul V. Villard and Philippe Sornay and Marie Chaze and Farhang Radjai},
  journal={arXiv: Soft Condensed Matter},
  year={2012}
}

• B. Saint-Cyr, K. Szarf, +9 authors F. Radjai
• Published 2 August 2012
• Physics
• arXiv: Soft Condensed Matter

Particle shape is a key to the space-filling and strength properties of granular matter. We consider a shape parameter $\eta$ describing the degree of distortion from a perfectly spherical shape. Encompassing most specific shape characteristics such as elongation, angularity and nonconvexity, $\eta$ is a low-order but generic parameter that we used in a numerical benchmark test for a systematic investigation of shape-dependence in sheared granular packings composed of particles of different shapes. We find that the shear strength is an increasing function of $\eta$ with nearly the same trend for all shapes, the differences appearing thus to be of second order compared to $\eta$. We also observe a nontrivial behavior of packing fraction which, for all our simulated shapes, increases with $\eta$ from the random close packing fraction for disks, reaches a peak considerably higher than that for disks, and subsequently declines as $\eta$ is further increased. These findings suggest that a low-order description of particle shape accounts for the principal trends of packing fraction and shear strength. Hence, the effect of second-order shape parameters may be investigated by considering different shapes at the same level of $\eta$.