Support for US Participants for Symposium on Methods to Predict the Structural and Mechanical Properties of Dense Granular Media, Graz, Austria, July 9-13, 2012

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1244382PI: BehringerThis proposal will cover travel-related expenses for US scientists who will present their research, and interact with other experts, at the mini-symposium entitled, Methods to Predict the Structural and Mechanical Properties of Dense Granular Media, at the 8th EUROMECH Solid Mechanics Conference (ESMC 2012) in Graz, Austria (July 9-13, 2012). This mini symposium at ESMC 2012 will strengthen collaborative ties between researchers from Europe, the U.S. and other regions, who work in the disciplines above, and who study dense granular materials. Granular materials can exist in highly fluidized, liquid-like, or solid-like phases depending on the driving mechanism and intensity. There has been considerable progress in describing granular gases and dilute fluids. However, developing reliable descriptions of dense granular materials (DGM) and the fluid-to-solid or jamming transition remains one of the grand research challenges in this field. If the community is to understand and eventually predict the behavior of DGM, we must develop innovative ways to characterize multi-scale structures, and develop statistical and mathematical techniques that can relate structural, mechanical, and statistical properties to imposed macroscopic constraints. The overarching goal of current studies of DGM is to develop statistical and mathematical models that can be used for quantitative and predictive description of their structural and mechanical properties given a spectrum of preparation histories and particle properties. The mini symposium will facilitate progress towards this goal by enabling interactions between researchers who might not otherwise have this opportunity. Granular materials occur broadly in nature, industrial applications, and the day-to-day environment. Important applications, involving trillions of dollars per year in the US alone, range from the handling and transport of rocks and soils in the oil and mining industries to the processing of powders and pills in the pharmaceutical industry. Despite their wide-ranging appearance in industry and nature, our ability to predict their behavior lags far behind that for more conventional materials such as Newtonian fluids. Advances in this field would have a major economic impact. In addition, this proposal will help support travel costs of junior participants, which will help prepare them for future careers in STEM disciplines. It will also provide opportunities for women researchers and researchers from under-represented groups.