1. Pulse Propagation in Granular Media
Katja Lindenberg, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and BioCircuits Institute, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California ,USA
Granular chains serve as a testbed for studying energy (pulse) propagation in granular media. Our research has focused on analyzing pulse propagation in granular chains by means of simple models. Our theory is based on a binary collision approximation (BCA), which makes use of the spatially discrete and highly nonlinear interactions in granular systems. Using the BCA, we are able to make quantitative predictions for various pulse characteristics in very diverse chains.
Decorated chain
Tapered chain
Our next goal is to extend our methods to randomized granular chains and to higher
dimensional granular systems. This is to be assisted by the
numerical methods used in molecular dynamics simulations.
A computer code to simulate pulse propagation in 2dimensional
granular system has already been developed.