Acoustic emissions unveil internal motion in granular materials
Friday, February 7, 2014 - 11:01
in Physics & Chemistry
When confronted with a heavy load or deformed by stress, the individual particles in a granular material will sometimes reorganize to a more stable arrangement. At small scales these reorganizations are little more than the redistribution of grains in the pile. In some cases, though, a reorganization is the first step of a critical failure, the trigger for an avalanche or landslide.