Crystallization of non-Brownian Spheres under Horizontal Shaking

Olivier Pouliquen (1) , Maxime Nicolas (1) , P. D. Weidman

1 IUSTI - Institut universitaire des systèmes thermiques industriels

Until now, it has been observed that a collective handling of uniform spheres could only lead to a random close packing of 0.64 maximum volume fraction. In this Letter, we show that denser crystalline arrangements can be obtained when beads are poured at low flow rates into a horizontally shaken container. A parallel is suggested between this process and that of colloidal sedimentation which also yields crystalline structure.

Domaines: Autre [cond-mat.other]

Olivier Pouliquen, Maxime Nicolas, P. D. Weidman. Crystallization of non-Brownian Spheres under Horizontal Shaking. Physical Review Letters, 1997, 79, pp.3640 - 3643. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.79.3640⟩. ⟨hal-01440072⟩