Mechanics of Granular Materials: Rigidity, Nonlocality, and Activated Failure

颗粒状材料是我们日常生活中不可或缺的一部分，从早晨的咖啡豆，到治愈我们的药丸，再到发电厂的煤炭。然而，这类材料仍然很难在工业环境中成功处理，难以在易发生滑坡的山坡上进行危险评估，或确保土木基础设施（如堤坝或堤坝）的稳定性。通过该项目，PI将进行受控实验室实验，旨在确定稳定颗粒材料开始流动的过程。测量单个粒子的加载和滑动细节的大型数据集将使我们能够测试来自工程和物理界的各种方法的有效性，并在它们之间建立联系。与北卡罗来纳州科学之家一起，他们将组织一个名为LEAP的年度研讨会！（启动您的物理学卓越冒险）既为高中女生提供动手接触尖端物理学，并培训物理研究人员将其研究成果翻译为可公开访问的格式，也为我们实验室的合作者提供工业和地球物理应用。最后，他们将继续与本科研究人员合作，包括特别强调从代表性不足和历史上被边缘化的群体中招募和支持学生。这些活动将使他们的学员能够在教育，工业或政府中找到工作，因为他们的兴趣与实验技术和数据科学的关键专业知识一致。当颗粒材料失去刚性时，它会在已知的约束条件下重新排列其颗粒和内力。材料不会自发地转变为新的构型，而是必须跨越某个摩擦或能量阈值。通过这个项目，PI将对慢流进行实验，以确定颗粒材料开始从一个有效状态变形/流动到另一个有效状态的机械过程，以及如何选择这一系列状态。对于一个给定的粒子构型，内力并不简单地由外载荷决定：许多退化解是可能的。这表明，从统计物理学得出的方法将是必要的，以捕捉颗粒现象。该小组的目标是测试多个框架，并寻求工程方法之间的联系的问题（非局部流变学，莫尔-库仑故障）和统计物理（堵塞，刚性渗流，无热统计合奏）。它们将通过来自边界的机械力以及来自粒子尺度活动的内部力来驱动材料失去刚性，以实现这些连接。实验将提供各种应用的基础知识：岩土工程和危险估计;制药，农业和采矿业的散装材料处理;和太阳系探索任务。与北卡罗来纳州科学之家一起，PI将组织一个名为LEAP的年度研讨会！（启动您的优秀物理冒险）既为高中女生提供动手接触尖端物理（包括颗粒材料），并培训物理研究人员将他们的研究翻译为可公开访问的格式。最后，他们将继续与本科研究人员合作，包括特别强调招募和支持来自代表性不足和历史上被边缘化的群体的学生。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Non-technical AbstractGranular materials are integral to many parts of our daily lives, from the coffee beans that fuel our mornings, to the pharmaceutical pills that heal us, to the coal that fuels our power plants. Yet, this class of materials remains very difficult to successfully handle in industrial contexts, to provide hazard estimation on our landslide-prone hillsides, or to ensure stability of civil infrastructure such as embankments or levees. Through this project, the PI will perform controlled laboratory experiments aimed at determining the processes by which a stable granular material begins to flow. Large datasets measuring the details of loading and slipping for individual particles will allow us to test the efficacy of, and draw connections between, a variety of approaches drawn from both the engineering and physics communities. Together with the NC State Science House, they will organize an annual workshop called LEAP! (Launch your Excellent Adventures with Physics) to both provide high school girls with hands-on exposure to cutting-edge physics, and train physics researchers in the translation of their research to publicly-accessible formats, and also to our lab’s collaborators working on industrial and geophysical applications. Finally, they will continue work with undergraduate researchers, including a particular emphasis on recruiting and supporting students from under-represented and historically marginalized groups. These activities will equip their trainees to find jobs in education, industry, or governments as their interests align, with key expertise in both experimental techniques and data science. Technical AbstractWhen a granular material loses rigidity, it collectively rearranges its particles and internal forces, subject to known constraints. The material does not transition to a new configuration spontaneously, but must cross some threshold, frictional or energetic. Through this project, the PI will perform experiments on slow flows in order to determine the mechanical process by which a granular material begins to deform/flow from one valid state to another, and how this series of states is selected. For a given configuration of particles, the internal forces are not simply determined by the external load: many degenerate solutions are possible. This indicates that approaches drawn from statistical physics will be necessary to capture granular phenomena. The group aims to test multiple frameworks and seek connections between engineering approaches to the problem (nonlocal rheology, Mohr-Coulomb failure) and those of statistical physics (jamming, rigidity percolation, athermal statistical ensembles). They will drive the material to lose rigidity both by mechanical forcing from a boundary, as well as by internal forcing from particle-scale activity, in order to make these connections. Experiments will provide fundamental knowledge key to a variety of applications: geotechnical engineering and hazard estimation; bulk materials handling in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and mining industries; and solar system exploration missions. Together with the NC State Science House, the PI will organize an annual workshop called LEAP! (Launch your Excellent Adventures with Physics) to both provide high school girls with hands-on exposure to cutting-edge physics (including granular materials), and train physics researchers in the translation of their research to publicly accessible formats. Finally, they will continue work with undergraduate researchers, including a particular emphasis on recruiting and supporting students from under-represented and historically marginalized groups.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.