Microscopic and macroscopic aspects of stick-slip motion in granular shear

An annular shear cell has been used to investigate a number of factors known to influence stick-slip motion in an assembly of near monosized, spherical glass beads. In this paper, both the sample shear stress and volumetric strain were recorded, allowing new insights into the possible mechanics of stick-slip motion in a granular body. Rather than the commonly presented mechanism of sample dilation and fluidization accompanying the slip events, in the material studied here, sample dilation occurred during the preslip deformations of the granular body, while the slip event was accompanied by assembly contraction. Drive velocity and applied normal pressure were both found to influence the magnitude of the stick-slip spikes in a manner analogous to previous studies of stick-slip in assemblies of confined, near-spherical lubricant systems. Finally, atmospheric relative humidity was found to have a marked effect on the magnitude of the stick-slip motion. To investigate this mechanism more fully, the atomic force microscopy was employed to measure the particle-particle interaction forces as a function of atmospheric relative humidity. A water meniscus was found to form under all humidities, from less than 5% to greater than 95%. However, its influence on the adhesive forces varied by an order of magnitude. While most previous studies of stick-slip phenomena have attempted to remove atmospheric humidity as a variable, here we present a useful link between the role of relative humidity on particle-particle interaction forces and the macroscopic response of the granular assembly.