Granular friction, Coulomb failure, and the fluid-solid transition for horizontally shaken granular materials

We present the results of an extensive series of experiments, molecular dynamics simulations, and models that address horizontal shaking of a layer of granular material. The goal of this work was to better understand the transition between the "fluid" and "solid" states of granular materials. In the experiments, the material-consisting of glass spheres, smooth and rough sand-was contained in a container of rectangular cross section, and subjected to horizontal shaking of the form x=A sin(omega(t)). The base of the container was porous, so that it was possible to reduce the effective weight of the sample by means of a vertical gas flow. The acceleration of the shaking could be precisely controlled by means of an accelerometer mounted onboard the shaker, plus feedback control and lockin detection. The relevant control parameter for this system was the dimensionless acceleration, Gamma=Aomega(2)/g, where g was the acceleration of gravity. As Gamma was varied, the layer underwent a backward bifurcation between a solidlike state that was stationary in the frame of the shaker and a fluidlike state that typically consisted of a sloshing layer of maximum depth H riding on top of a solid layer. That is, with increasing Gamma, the solid state made a transition to the fluid state at Gamma(cu) and once the system was in the fluid state, a decrease in Gamma left the system in the fluidized state until Gamma reached Gamma(cd)