1 research outputs found
Two-dimensional Packing in Prolate Granular Materials
We investigate the two-dimensional packing of extremely prolate (aspect ratio
) granular materials, comparing experiments with Monte-Carlo
simulations. The average packing fraction of particles with aspect ratio
is . We quantify the orientational correlation of
particles and find a correlation length of two particle lengths. The functional
form of the decay of orientational correlation is the same in both experiments
and simulations spanning three orders of magnitude in aspect ratio. This
function decays over a distance of two particle lengths. It is possible to
identify voids in the pile with sizes ranging over two orders of magnitude. The
experimental void distribution function is a power law with exponent
. Void distributions in simulated piles do not decay as a
power law, but do show a broad tail. We extend the simulation to investigate
the scaling at very large aspect ratios. A geometric argument predicts the pile
number density to scale as . Simulations do indeed scale this way,
but particle alignment complicates the picture, and the actual number densities
are quite a bit larger than predicted.Comment: 6 pages + 10 ps/eps figure