We investigate the dynamic evolution of jamming in granular media through fluctuations in the granular drag force. The successive collapse and formation of jammed states give a stick-slip nature to the fluctuations which is independent of the contact surface between the grains and the dragged object, thus implying that the stress-induced collapse is nucleated in the bulk of the granular sample. We also find that while the fluctuations are periodic at small depths, they become “stepped” at large depths, a transition which we interpret as a consequence of the long-range nature of the force chains.
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Authors
I. Albert, P. Tegzes, B. Kahng, R. Albert, J.G. Sample, M.A. Pfeifer, A.-L. Barabási, T. Vicsek, P. Schiffer