Critical behaviors of sheared frictionless granular materials near the jamming transition

Jamming and flow of random-close-packed spherical bubbles: an analogy with granular materials

Wet foams are random-close-packed assemblies of approximately spherical gas bubbles in a liquid. We report rheological experiments with this material, showing that even though the stiffness and frictional interactions of bubbles strongly distinguish them from solid spherical grains, jamming and flow of wet foams and granular materials are governed by closely analogous laws.

Critical scaling of shearing rheology at the jamming transition of soft-core frictionless disks

We perform numerical simulations to determine the shear stress and pressure of steady-state shear flow in a soft-disk model in two dimensions at zero temperature in the vicinity of the jamming transition ϕ{J}. We use critical point scaling analyses to determine the critical behavior at jamming, and we find that it is crucial to include corrections to scaling for a reliable analysis. We find that the relative size of these corrections are much smaller for pressure than for shear stress. We furthermore find a superlinear behavior for pressure and shear stress above ϕ{J}, both from the scaling analysis and from a direct analysis of pressure data extrapolated to the limit of vanishing shear rate.

Microfluidic rheology of soft colloids above and below jamming

The rheology near jamming of a suspension of soft colloidal spheres is studied using a custom microfluidic rheometer that provides the stress versus strain rate over many decades. We find non-Newtonian behavior below the jamming concentration and yield-stress behavior above it. The data may be collapsed onto two branches with critical scaling exponents that agree with expectations based on Hertzian contacts and viscous drag. These results support the conclusion that jamming is similar to a critical phase transition, but with interaction-dependent exponents.

Asymmetric velocity correlations in shearing media

A model of soft frictionless disks in two dimensions at zero temperature is simulated with a shearing dynamics to study various kinds of asymmetries in sheared systems. We examine both single particle properties, the spatial velocity correlation function, and a correlation function designed to separate clockwise and counterclockwise rotational fields from one another. Among the rich and interesting behaviors we find that the velocity correlation along the two different diagonals corresponding to compression and dilation, respectively, are almost identical and, furthermore, that a feature in one of the correlation functions is directly related to irreversible plastic events.

Model for the scaling of stresses and fluctuations in flows near jamming

We probe flows of soft, viscous spheres near the jamming point, which acts as a critical point for static soft spheres. Starting from energy considerations, we find nontrivial scaling of velocity fluctuations with strain rate. Combining this scaling with insights from jamming, we arrive at an analytical model that predicts four distinct regimes of flow, each characterized by rational-valued scaling exponents. Both the number of regimes and the values of the exponents depart from prior results. We validate predictions of the model with simulations.