2018 Gordon Research Conference on Granular Matter: The Interdisciplinary Nature of Particulate Systems

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This grant provides funds in support of scientists and engineers, particularly junior scientists and engineers from under-represented groups, to attend the Ninth Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Granular Matter being held on July 22-27, 2018 at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. The funds will also support the associated Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) on Granular Matter held two days before the GRC meeting at the same location.Granular materials, or particulate materials, are the 2nd most abundant condensed format of materials on Earth after water and are everywhere in daily life and industrial contexts. But compared with the study of water flows, where the Navier-Stokes equations have been established and extensively studied more than 150 years, the understanding of granular materials is still primitive. A quantitative description of granular flows in different states is lacking. The predictive power highly needed in industry remains limited. Fundamentally, the development of a theoretical understanding of far-from-equilibrium granular materials in disordered states with nonlinear dissipative interactions will certainly push the frontier of statistical mechanics, condensed matter theory, fluid mechanics and dynamical systems theory. Due to the relevance of granular matter to a wide range of natural and industrial systems, the study of granular materials spreads across multiple scientific and engineering fields, each of which has its own objectives and techniques. To coordinate these diverse research efforts, it is important to maintain a regular platform for scientists and engineers to discuss and exchange ideas across disciplines. The structure of GRC accomplishes this by promoting presentations of new, unpublished work followed by free, unhampered discussion among participants from disciplines that normally do not intersect. The conference requests formal discussion periods after every talk (guided by a discussion leader), free time in the afternoons for small groups, follow-on discussions, poster sessions, and shared meals with on-site housing. This combination maximizes the interactions between participants of different fields during the meeting. The conference also provides a friendly environment in which new collaborations can be forged to identify fruitful new lines of research and to help tackle longstanding problems. Over the last two decades, this biannual conference has become the most important international conference on granular materials. NSF has been the main supporter for the previous eight meetings. A continuous support from NSF is critical to the success of the upcoming GRC on granular materials.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.