1307.7356 (Jens Boberski et al.)

Evolution of the force distributions in jammed packings of soft
particles    [PDF]

Jens Boberski, M. Reza Shaebani, Dietrich E. Wolf

The evolution of the force distributions during the isotropic compression of two dimensional packings of soft frictional particles is investigated numerically. Regardless of the applied deformation, the normal contact force distribution $P(f_n)$ can be fitted by the product of a power-law, and a stretched exponential, while the tangential force distribution $P(f_t)$ is well fitted by a Gaussian. With increasing strain, both $P(f_n)$ and $P(f_t)$ exhibit a broadening, while, when scaled with the average forces, their widths decrease. Thus, a more homogeneous force network is observed for packings under large deformation. Furthermore, the distribution of friction mobilization $P(\eta)$ is a decreasing function of $\eta=|f_t|/(\mu f_n)$, except for an increased probability of fully mobilized contacts ($\eta=1$). The excess coordination number of the packings increases with the applied strain, indicating that the more a packing is compressed the more stable it becomes.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.7356