58,171 research outputs found
Detection of ice core particles via deep neural networks
Insoluble particles in ice cores record signatures of past climate parameters like vegetation dynamics, volcanic activity, and aridity. For some of them, the analytical detection relies on intensive bench microscopy investigation and requires dedicated sample preparation steps. Both are laborious, require in-depth knowledge, and often restrict sampling strategies. To help overcome these limitations, we present a framework based on flow imaging microscopy coupled to a deep neural network for autonomous image classification of ice core particles. We train the network to classify seven commonly found classes, namely mineral dust, felsic and mafic (basaltic) volcanic ash grains (tephra), three species of pollen (Corylus avellana, Quercus robur, Quercus suber), and contamination particles that may be introduced onto the ice core surface during core handling operations. The trained network achieves 96.8 % classification accuracy at test time. We present the system's potential and its limitations with respect to the detection of mineral dust, pollen grains, and tephra shards, using both controlled materials and real ice core samples. The methodology requires little sample material, is non-destructive, fully reproducible, and does not require any sample preparation procedures. The presented framework can bolster research in the field by cutting down processing time, supporting human-operated microscopy, and further unlocking the paleoclimate potential of ice core records by providing the opportunity to identify an array of ice core particles. Suggestions for an improved system to be deployed within a continuous flow analysis workflow are also presented
Shear-induced rigidity of frictional particles: Analysis of emergent order in stress space
Solids are distinguished from fluids by their ability to resist shear. In
traditional solids, the resistance to shear is associated with the emergence of
broken translational symmetry as exhibited by a non-uniform density pattern,
which results from either minimizing the energy cost or maximizing the entropy
or both. In this work, we focus on a class of systems, where this paradigm is
challenged. We show that shear-driven jamming in dry granular materials is a
collective process controlled solely by the constraints of mechanical
equilibrium. We argue that these constraints lead to a broken translational
symmetry in a dual space that encodes the statistics of contact forces and the
topology of the contact network. The shear-jamming transition is marked by the
appearance of this broken symmetry. We extend our earlier work, by comparing
and contrasting real space measures of rheology with those obtained from the
dual space. We investigate the structure and behavior of the dual space as the
system evolves through the rigidity transition in two different shear
protocols. We analyze the robustness of the shear-jamming scenario with respect
to protocol and packing fraction, and demonstrate that it is possible to define
a protocol-independent order parameter in this dual space, which signals the
onset of rigidity.Comment: 14 pages, 17 figure
Self-diffusion in dense granular shear flows
Diffusivity is a key quantity in describing velocity fluctuations in granular
materials. These fluctuations are the basis of many thermodynamic and
hydrodynamic models which aim to provide a statistical description of granular
systems. We present experimental results on diffusivity in dense, granular
shear in a 2D Couette geometry. We find that self-diffusivities are
proportional to the local shear rate with diffusivities along the mean flow
approximately twice as large as those in the perpendicular direction. The
magnitude of the diffusivity is D \approx \dot\gamma a^2 where a is the
particle radius. However, the gradient in shear rate, coupling to the mean
flow, and drag at the moving boundary lead to particle displacements that can
appear sub- or super-diffusive. In particular, diffusion appears superdiffusive
along the mean flow direction due to Taylor dispersion effects and subdiffusive
along the perpendicular direction due to the gradient in shear rate. The
anisotropic force network leads to an additional anisotropy in the diffusivity
that is a property of dense systems with no obvious analog in rapid flows.
Specifically, the diffusivity is supressed along the direction of the strong
force network. A simple random walk simulation reproduces the key features of
the data, such as the apparent superdiffusive and subdiffusive behavior arising
from the mean flow, confirming the underlying diffusive motion. The additional
anisotropy is not observed in the simulation since the strong force network is
not included. Examples of correlated motion, such as transient vortices, and
Levy flights are also observed. Although correlated motion creates velocity
fields qualitatively different from Brownian motion and can introduce
non-diffusive effects, on average the system appears simply diffusive.Comment: 13 pages, 20 figures (accepted to Phys. Rev. E
Scale invariance and universality of force networks in static granular matter
Force networks form the skeleton of static granular matter. They are the key
ingredient to mechanical properties, such as stability, elasticity and sound
transmission, which are of utmost importance for civil engineering and
industrial processing. Previous studies have focused on the global structure of
external forces (the boundary condition), and on the probability distribution
of individual contact forces. The disordered spatial structure of the force
network, however, has remained elusive so far. Here we report evidence for
scale invariance of clusters of particles that interact via relatively strong
forces. We analyzed granular packings generated by molecular dynamics
simulations mimicking real granular matter; despite the visual variation, force
networks for various values of the confining pressure and other parameters have
identical scaling exponents and scaling function, and thus determine a
universality class. Remarkably, the flat ensemble of force configurations--a
simple generalization of equilibrium statistical mechanics--belongs to the same
universality class, while some widely studied simplified models do not.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures; to appear in Natur
Refractive Index Matched Scanning and Detection of Soft Particle
We describe here how to apply the three dimensional imaging technique of
refrecative index matched scanning to hydrogel spheres. Hydrogels are water
based materials with a low refractive index, which allows for index matching
with water-based solvent mixtures. We discuss here various experimental
techniques required to handle specifically hydrogel spheres as opposed to other
transparent materials. The deformability of hydrogel spheres makes their
identification in three dimensional images non-trivial. We will also discuss
numerical techniques that can be used in general to detect contacting,
non-spherical particles in a three dimensional image. The experimental and
numerical techniques presented here give experimental access to the stress
tensor of a packing of deformed particles.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, submitted to review of scientific instruments,
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