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Solitary wave trains in granular chains: experiments, theory and simulations

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Abstract

The features of solitary waves observed in horizontal monodisperse chain of barely touching beads not only depend on geometrical and material properties of the beads but also on the initial perturbation provided at the edge of the chain. An impact of a large striker on a monodisperse chain, and similarly a sharp decrease of bead radius in a stepped chain, generates a solitary wave train containing many single solitary waves ordered by decreasing amplitudes. We find, by simple analytical arguments, that the unloading of compression force at the chain edge has a nearly exponential decrease. The characteristic time is mainly a function involving the grains’ masses and the striker mass. Numerical calculations and experiments corroborate these findings.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Supmeca, 3 rue Fernand Hainaut, 93407, Saint-Ouen, France

    Stéphane Job

  2. Departamento de Física, USACH and CIMAT, Av. Ecuador 3493, Casilla 307, Correo 2, Santiago, Chile

    Francisco Melo

  3. Department of Physics, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, 14260, USA

    Adam Sokolow & Surajit Sen

Authors
  1. Stéphane Job
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  2. Francisco Melo
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  3. Adam Sokolow
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  4. Surajit Sen
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Correspondence to Stéphane Job.

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Job, S., Melo, F., Sokolow, A. et al. Solitary wave trains in granular chains: experiments, theory and simulations. Granular Matter 10, 13–20 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10035-007-0054-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10035-007-0054-2

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