Scaling properties of granular materials.

Given an assembly of viscoelastic spheres with certain material properties, we raise the question how the macroscopic properties of the assembly will change if all lengths of the system, i.e. radii, container size etc., are scaled by a constant. The result leads to a method to scale down experiments to lab size.

Onset of fluidization in vertically shaken granular material

When granular material is shaken vertically one observes convection, surface fluidization, spontaneous heap formation, and other effects. There is a controversial discussion in the literature as to whether there exists a threshold for the Froude number Gamma=A(0)omega(2)(0)/g, below which these effects cannot be observed anymore. By means of theoretical analysis and computer simulation we find that there is no such single threshold. Instead, we propose a modified criterion that coincides with the critical Froude number Gamma(c)=1 for small driving frequency omega(0).