Granular materials, as a physical system, comprise large assemblies of discrete macroscopic particles that interact predominantly via contact forces, friction, and inelastic collisions, leading to inherently dissipative, non-equilibrium behavior. They exhibit dual solid-like and fluid-like responses depending on stress, packing fraction, and driving conditions, with phenomena such as jamming, dilatancy, force chains, and shear banding. Continuum descriptions often employ modified elasto-plastic or rheological models (e.g., μ(I) rheology), while discrete element methods resolve particle-scale dynamics. Their mechanical response is strongly history-dependent and non-linear, with emergent collective effects that challenge conventional thermodynamic and hydrodynamic formalisms.
Two microscopic grains collide and produce a tiny spark. This phenomenon may have provided the energy to kick off life on Earth. But if these solid particles have the same composition, what factor causes the charge to flow ...
Astrobiology
Mar 18, 2026
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How does fine dust aggregate into building blocks that ultimately form entire planets like our Earth? A research team led by the University of Bern, with the participation of ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and the National ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 17, 2026
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Lunar dust can be a pain—but it's also literally the ground we will have to traverse if we are ever to have a permanent human settlement on the moon. In that specific use case, its clingy, jagged, staticky properties can ...
Space Exploration
Mar 10, 2026
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No two snowflakes may be the same, but models that fail to take these variations into consideration often fall short when calculating the way snow accumulates on roofs. In Physics of Fluids, researchers from Harbin Institute ...
General Physics
Mar 10, 2026
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A research team from the School of Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has developed a new computational model to study the movement of granular materials such as soils, sands and powders. By ...
General Physics
May 16, 2025
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Lately, there's been plenty of progress in 3D printing objects from the lunar regolith. We've reported on several projects that have attempted to do so, with varying degrees of success. However, most of them require some ...
Planetary Sciences
Apr 28, 2025
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61
Did you eat cereal this morning? Or have you walked on a gravel path? Maybe you had a headache and had to take a pill? If you answered any of these questions with a yes, you interacted with a granular system today.
Earth Sciences
Apr 28, 2025
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20
Why do avalanches start to slide? And what happens inside the "pile of snow?" If you ask yourself these questions, you are very close to a physical problem. This phenomenon not only occurs on mountain peaks and in snow masses, ...
Condensed Matter
Feb 17, 2025
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51
In bird colonies, schools of fish and cycling pelotons, significant interactions occur between individuals through the surrounding fluid. These interactions are well understood in fluids such as air and water, but what happens ...
Coffee beans in a jar and piles of rice or sand are examples of granular matter: materials composed of large numbers of macroscopic—rather than atomic scale—particles. Although granular matter is extremely familiar in everyday ...
General Physics
Apr 17, 2024
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