Imaging Ultrafast Granular Dynamics in 3D

Granular materials (assemblies of contacting grains with inter-granular porosity) form a vast family of materials important in both natural and industrial contexts.

They exhibit complex behaviours that stem from the mobility and collective interactions of relatively simple building blocks (i.e., contacting particles) that together produce the bulk material behaviours and structural evolution.

Mechanisms act over a range of spatial and temporal scales from intra-granular mechanics to contacting-particle interactions, intermediate (meso-) scale correlations and structure formation (e.g., force chains and localised deformation such as shear bands) to long-range pattern formation.

These kinematic effects are associated with the build-up of stress, within grains and across granular structures, and relaxation via structural reorganisation and particle damage or breakage.

During these processes, deformation rate plays a key role in the ability for a system to reorganise and dissipate energy such that fast dynamic phenomena might differ significantly from those observed under quasi-static loading.

This research project will build on a strong foundation of experimental developments and analysis for quasi-static granular mechanics coupled with recent developments in ultra-fast x-ray imaging to provide unprecedented probing of the details of dynamic processes in granular materials with a focus on revealing the underlying physics of the granular interactions and failures.