This 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.
This grant provided support for international travel from the National Science Foundation's CBET to cover travel-related expenses for US scientists who presented their research at a mini-symposium ``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 helped strengthen collaborative ties between european and US researchers in mathematics, physics, and the engineering sciences who study dense granular media. Thirty-one prominent researchers and junior scientists in the field presented research talks. In fact, the mini-symposium organized by the PI's had the most participants of any mini-symposium at the meeting. Intellectual Merit Granular materials occur broadly in nature, in industrial applications, and in our 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 ordinary solids or Newtonian fluids. By developing new approaches to granular mechanics, issues such as these, which are of considerable interest to CBET are addressed. The organizing Committee for this minisymposium consisted Lou Kondic (NJIT) New Jersey Institute of Technology;Corey S. O'Hern, (Yale University); Robert Behringer, (Duke University), and Konstantin Mischaikow,(Rutgers University). The mini-symposium was organized into 120-minute sessions containing 6 presentations each, with 15 minutes for the talk and 5 minutes for questions. The PI's organized five oral sessions. Part of the last session of the mini-symposium was reserved for a discussion of future plans and collaborations; Total budget The PI's alloted an average of $1889 per U.S. participant to partially cover travel-related expenses. The PI's aimed to support the up to 15 participants, totaling $17,000. All qualified participants who requested support (and provided documentation) were in fact reimbursed for part or all of their travel. The following people received support from this grant: Scott Franklin (Rochester Institute of Technology), Thibault Bertrand (Yale), Ken Kamrin (MIT), Lou Kondic (NJIT), Robert Behringer (Duke University), Michel Louge (Cornell), wolfgang Losert (University of Maryland), Carl Shreck (Yale), Bulbul Chakraborty (Brandeis University). Broader Impact The regime where granular materials transition between flowing and jammed states is of great relevance to many industrial processes, including those in chemical engineering, pharmaceuticals, and oil production. A quantitative and predictive understanding of how to model granular materials as they yield, flow, or respond to applied stresses has not yet been reached. While significant research efforts in DGM are being performed by a wide array of scientists, often the researchers are not aware of related work being carried out in different disciplines and on different continents. The proposed mini-symposium will bring together physicists, mathematicians, and engineers to encourage new collaborations across disciplines and nationalities that will stimulate intellectual breakthroughs in DGM in the coming decade. In addition, the mini-symposium will allow junior scientists to present their work to the international community and interact with leaders in the field of DGM. The PI envisions that this mini-symposium will serve as a launching pad for future multi-discipline and multi-national workshops on DGM. Program and participants: Program, Minisymposium-22 MS-22.1 Methods to Predict the Properties of Dense Granular Media RBehringer, DBi, JZhang, BChakraborty RPeralta-Fabi, Clément, GGutiérrez, FMelo ADöring, J-FMétayer, MScheel, MSchröter C-WPeng, MSchröter AAmon, VBNguyen, ABruand, JCrassous, EClément MS-22.2 Methods to Predict the Properties of Dense Granular Media Abdoulaye Fall, Anaël Lemaître, François Bertrand Mario Liu Stefan Luding MS-22.3 Methods to Predict the Properties of Dense Granular Media Michel Y. Louge, Cian S. Carroll, Barbara Turnbull Wolfgang Losert, Mitch Mailman, Steven Slotterback Paul B. Umbanhowar, Nick Gravish, Daniel I. Goldman Osamu Sano Jianfeng Wang, Haibin Yan Olukayode Isaiah Imole, Nishant Kumar, Vanessa Magnanimo, Stefan Luding MS-22.4 Methods to Predict the Properties of Dense Granular Media Amy Rechenmacher, Andres Orlando Brian P. Tighe Gary William Delaney, James E. Hilton, Paul W. Cleary Lou Kondic, Arnaud Goullet, Miroslav Kramar, Konstantin Mischaikow, Robert Behringer Miroslav Kramar, Konstantin Mischaikow, Lou Kondic, Arnaud Goullet, Robert Behringer Miroslav Kramar, Konstantin Mischaikow, Vidit Nanda MS-22.5 Methods to Predict the Properties of Dense Granular Media Michele Griffa, Behrooz Ferdowsi, J. Carmeliet, E.G. Daub, R.A. Guyer, P.A. Johnson, C. Marone Scott Victor Franklin Ken Kamrin, Georg Koval MS-22.6 Methods to Predict the Properties of Dense Granular Media Bulbul Chakraborty, Dapeng Bi Hisao Hayakawa, Kuniyasu Saitoh Thibault Bertrand, Carl F. Schreck, Corey S. OHern, Mark D. Shattuck Mark D. Shattuck, S.S. Ashwin, Jerzy Blawzdziewicz, Corey S. OHern MS-22.7 Methods to Predict the Properties of Dense Granular M. Rebecca Hihinashvili, Raphael Blumenfeld Till Kranz, A. Fiege, I. Gholami, Matthias Sperl, Annette Zippelius Takashi Matsushima, Raphael Blumenfeld Nicolas Brodu, Renaud Delannay, Patrick Richard
