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

这笔赠款提供资金，以支持科学家和工程师，特别是来自代表性不足群体的初级科学家和工程师，参加2018年7月22-27日在马萨诸塞州伊斯顿市斯通希尔学院举行的第九届戈登颗粒物质研究会议(GRC)。这笔资金还将支持在同一地点举行的戈登颗粒物质研究研讨会(GRS)。颗粒材料，或颗粒材料，是地球上仅次于水的第二大最丰富的浓缩形式的材料，在日常生活和工业环境中随处可见。但与已经建立了150多年的Navier-Stokes方程并进行了广泛研究的水流研究相比，对颗粒物质的理解仍然是原始的。缺乏对不同状态下颗粒流的定量描述。工业中迫切需要的预测能力仍然有限。从根本上说，对具有非线性耗散相互作用的无序状态下远离平衡的颗粒物质的理论认识的发展，必将推动统计力学、凝聚态理论、流体力学和动力系统理论的前沿。由于颗粒物质与广泛的自然和工业系统相关，颗粒材料的研究涉及多个科学和工程领域，每个领域都有自己的目标和技术。为了协调这些不同的研究工作，重要的是保持一个定期的平台，让科学家和工程师讨论和交流跨学科的想法。GRC的结构通过促进新的、未发表的作品的展示，然后在来自通常不交叉的学科的参与者之间自由、不受阻碍地讨论来实现这一点。大会要求在每次演讲后有正式的讨论时间(由讨论负责人指导)，下午小组的自由时间，后续讨论，海报会议，以及与现场住房分享晚餐。这种组合最大限度地提高了会议期间不同领域的与会者之间的互动。会议还提供了一个友好的环境，可以在其中建立新的合作，以确定富有成效的新研究方向，并帮助解决长期存在的问题。在过去的二十年里，这个一年两次的会议已经成为最重要的颗粒材料国际会议。NSF一直是前八次会议的主要支持者。来自NSF的持续支持对于即将到来的颗粒材料GRC的成功至关重要。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.