Ageing of a granular pile induced by thermal cycling

Thibaut Divoux (1) , Ion Vassilief (1) , Hervé Gayvallet (1) , Jean-Christophe Géminard (1)

1 Phys-ENS - Laboratoire de Physique de l'ENS Lyon

Here we show that variations of temperature, even of a few degrees in amplitude, induce the ageing of a granular pile. In particular, we report measurements of physical properties of a granular heap submitted to thermal cycles. Namely, we focus on the evolution of the thermal linear-expansion coefficient and of the thermal conductivity of the pile with the number of cycles. The present contribution nicely supplements a recent article we published elsewhere [Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 148303 (2008)] and introduces a different and promising method to impose temperature cycles to a granular pile.

Mots clés: Thermal cycling; Granular compaction; Ageing; Thermal expansion; Thermal conductivity

Domaines: Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]; Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Thibaut Divoux, Ion Vassilief, Hervé Gayvallet, Jean-Christophe Géminard. Ageing of a granular pile induced by thermal cycling. Powders and Grains 2009, Jul 2009, Golden (Colorado), United States. pp.473-476, ⟨10.1063/1.3179965⟩. ⟨hal-00517917⟩