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Applied Math Colloquium

Friday, December 6th, 2013, 11:30 AM
Cullimore Lecture Hall, Lecture Hall II
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Statistics and Dynamics of Force Networks in Dense Particulate Systems

Lou Kondic

New Jersey Institute of Technology

Abstract

The talk will focus on the properties of force networks found in discrete element simulations of isotropically compressed particulate systems. We will discuss how these properties evolve as the system goes through the jamming transition. Then, we will discuss new measures that can be used to quantify the temporal evolution of force networks, and discuss this evolution as the systems go through jamming. The implemented computational techniques are based on persistence analysis that allows to consider global properties of force networks. This technique, that has been only very recently applied to particulate matter allows to extract significant new information, going much beyond separation into `strong' and `weak' force networks. The proposed approach describes the considered networks in a precise and tractable manner, allowing to identify novel features which could be difficult or impossible to describe using other approaches.