Granular Matter DOI 10.

1007/s10035-011-0272-5

ORIGINAL PAPER

Exponential distribution of force chain lengths: a useful statistic that characterizes granular assemblies
L. Sanfratello J. Zhang Shannon Clint Cartee E. Fukushima

Received: 9 June 2009 Springer-Verlag 2011

Abstract The distribution of the lengths of force chains in 2D granular assemblies of photoelastic disks was found to decay exponentially, with the decay length a quantitative measure of the way force is applied to the system. A plausibility argument is provided for why this statistic displays an exponential decay. Keywords Force chains Granular Granular structure

1 Introduction Static granular materials are supported by an inhomogeneous network of force chains. The distribution of these forces has been the subject of numerous experiments and numerical simulations. It has been determined, from 2D observations and from the boundaries of 3D systems, that the chains carry non-uniform stresses [15]. These forces are seen in 2D to be distributed such that most of the stress is transmitted through a small number of chains with much of the assembly transmitting little or none. The force distribution is seen both experimentally and numerically to decay exponentially for forces larger than the mean [2,611]. For forces smaller than the mean, several results have been reported including a small peak at the mean [7], a power-law decay [8], and a leveling off at the mean value [11]. The force distribution is an excellent statistic which has been extensively investigated in 2D and it characterizes the inhomogeneity of forces but it does not contain direct geometrical information. Furthermore, models of the force distribution, for example the q-model and its extensions [6,7,9] which predict the observed force distribution using how particles redistribute the weight they carry to neighbor particles, do not provide any immediate information about force chain geometry. In at least one case, the 3D force chain structure was observed in 2D projection images of 3D assemblies with stress-induced birefringence and an index-matching uid. The image reported in [6] using this technique demonstrates that, as in 2D systems, the stress in packed granular materials is concentrated along chains and is not uniformly distributed inside the medium. More recently the overall 3D structure was imaged using an application of magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) which demonstrated how the force-carrying

L. Sanfratello New Mexico Resonance, Albuquerque, NM 87106, USA Present Address: L. Sanfratello (B) Department of Radiology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA e-mail: sanfratl@unm.edu J. Zhang Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA Present Address: J. Zhang Physics Department, Indiana UniversityPurdue University Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN 46805, USA S. C. Cartee New Mexico Resonance, 2301 Yale Blvd SE, Suite C-1, Albuquerque, NM 87106, USA S. C. Cartee University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA E. Fukushima ABQMR, 2301 Yale Blvd SE, Suite C-2, Albuquerque, NM 87106, USA e-mail: eiichi@abqmr.com

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chain structure permeates the interior of a 3D granular assembly [12]. We investigated the distribution of the lengths of force chains in granular systems. To that end, we specifically considered 2D granular assemblies of photoelastic disks under two forcing conditions, pure shear (where there is compression in one direction and expansion by an equal amount in the perpendicular direction) and isotropic (where there are compressions in both directions in equal amounts), as shown in Fig. 1. We developed and used a computer code and algorithms to extract the distribution of the lengths of the chains, where a chain is taken to be a relatively straight section between branch points, a common ad hoc definition [13]. This statistic decays exponentially in agreement with DEM simulations by Peters, et al. [14] for intermediate packing fractions and it also agrees qualitatively with a photo-elastic experiment in Couette geometry [13]. Finally, we also found that the decay rate is a measure of the way in which forcing took place. A plausibility argument is provided for why the distribution of chain lengths displays an exponential decay.

2 Methods The 2D photoelastic disk experiment was performed at Duke University [4,5]. The disks are placed in an acrylic apparatus which precisely controls the deformations of a square domain of photoelastic disks. Two kinds of deformations are considered in this reportisotropic compression and pure shear. In the isotropic compression experiment, the area of an initial square loosely lled with photoelastic disks, i.e., in the just barely unjammed state, gradually decreases to a smaller square by having the box dimensions decrease in two orthogonal directions at the same rate. The compression was stopped when a xed packing fraction, in this case 0.842 0.005, was reached. In the pure shear experiment, the area of an initial square domain is kept constant while the square is gradually deformed by compression along one direction and expansion along the other. The shear stops at the xed strain of 2%. The packing fraction, in this case, was 0.828 0.005. The apparatus was placed between a pair of crossed polarizers. Photoelastic images recorded the nal states of the compression and pure shear by encoding stress responses of each disk in the system under different deformations, i.e., isotropic compression and pure shear. Unpolarized optical images [4,5] were used to identify the diameters and location of the centers (in Cartesian coordinates) of each particle involved in chains (Fig. 2). Finally, a computer code was developed to determine the lengths of the force chains for

Fig. 1 Photoelastic images of 2D granular systems made up of disks showing force chain structure under two different forcing conditions. Top Pure shear state (compression in one directionvertical in this caseand expansion by an equal amount in the perpendicular direction). Bottom Isotropically forced system

Fig. 2 Magnied photoelastic image of isotropically compressed granular system (upper left portion of Fig. 1, bottom) showing particle centers marked with white dots

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Exponential distribution of force chain lengths

Fig. 3 Definition of contact angle , the deviation of contact direction from the force chain direction

various scenarios in which the thresholds for intensity and angle were varied. Eighteen images of 2D photoelastic disks under pure shear conning stresses and twenty images of 2D photoelastic disks under isotropic conning stresses (see Fig. 1 for examples) were processed. To get better statistics, we randomly changed the initial congurations of the disks while otherwise following the same protocols for repeated measurements. Approximately 1578 disks were used in each experiment. Two different size disks were mixed in order to avoid crystallization. Roughly 80% of the disks had diameter 0.74 cm and 20% had diameter 0.86 cm. Only those particles experiencing average stress greater than a threshold value, as indicated by average image intensity per particle, were retained to be considered as parts of force chains. A particle was dened as being part of a chain if it continued in approximately the same direction as the previous part of the chain, as dened by an angle between the chain propagation direction and a line drawn between the center of the previous particle assigned to the chain and the center of the current particle (Fig. 3). If is greater than the threshold angle 0 the chain terminates, the length is recorded, and the process moves to the beginning of the next chain. If is less than the threshold angle the particle is considered to be a member of the chain and the next particles in contact are identied and tested in the same way to see if the chain continues. The dependence of the force chain lengths was studied thoroughly as a function of the intensity and angle thresholds. Chain length distributions were calculated for all 38

data sets as a function of intensity thresholds in increments of one percent of maximum intensity. Clearly, if the threshold is very small, all particles are retained whereas none are retained when the threshold is too large. Force chain distributions remain ill dened for intensity thresholds from zero to 25%. The value of the characteristic decay length remains relatively constant for thresholds from 25 to 60% after which the decay length becomes shorter and less reproducible as the longer chains are broken up into shorter segments. For the remainder of this manuscript we consider only the medium-threshold regime, between 30 and 50%. The dependence of the decay length on the angle threshold 0 was studied as well. For 0 between 5 and 30 , the results were independent of angle thresholds as will be described further in the results section. Threshold angles greater than 30 are ignored because conservation of forces dictates the presence of another neighbor with contact angle most likely less than 30 in such cases. In the formalism used here, a particle is assigned to only one chain. This simplies the data processing at the cost of converting a small number of longer chains that cross each other into shorter chains. Trial calculations indicate that this effect is similar in both forcing conditions so the conclusion that the decay length of the distribution characterizes the forcing is not affected. Finally, after all particles that exceed the intensity threshold are assigned to chains, chains of lengths less than three particles are omitted from further analysis.

3 Results Typical results for the analysis of both isotropic and pure shear forcing data are shown in Fig. 4. The plots show the distribution of force chains having a certain length versus the lengths of the chains, while the inset is the semi-log presentation of the same data. These data are sums of all 18 and 20 data sets for both isotropic and pure shear, respectively, and divided by the number of sets to yield averages. Thus, the number of force chains having each length is summed over the 18 and 20 data sets and standard deviations of the number of chains of each length calculated in this way are plotted as error bars. The semi-log plots show that the distributions of chain lengths are exponential. Furthermore, there is a difference in the decay rate of the exponential function between the two cases, i.e., the decay rate is slower for the pure shear case or, alternatively, the average chain length is longer. The two distributions are plotted on the same graph to show the small but consistent difference. After the intensity thresholding, the particles remaining are candidates for being parts of force chains. The total number of such particles and the resulting chains are 12,295 and 2,236 for isotropic and 12,378 and 2,232 for pure shear,

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intensity thresholds for all 38 data sets. There is a consistent difference in decay rates of the force chain lengths between the pure shear and isotropic compression cases, i.e., the decay rate is larger for isotropic compression for every combination of intensity and angle thresholds. Varying 0 does not affect the resulting decay lengths for either forcing state whereas the decay lengths decrease slowly as the intensity threshold increases but all the while preserving the difference between the two cases. The decrease of decay length with increasing intensity threshold is a consequence of the higher intensity threshold leaving fewer disks as candidates for inclusion in force chains. With fewer disks from which to choose, the resulting force chains would have correspondingly fewer disks. On the other hand, the independence of on 0 is likely due to the narrow range of contact angles for all force chains.

4 Discussion A force chain, in this work, is taken to be a group of particles that experience average force, as seen in photoelastic images, that exceed a threshold and that are connected in a line that is reasonably straight, as dened by an angle threshold. This definition is common and more general than some others in the literature, for example, that take into account stress directions that depend on individual contacts in each particle [14]. We believe the exponential distribution of chain-lengths is not closely related to the well-known exponential distribution of forces. Instead, the origin of the distribution seems to be geometrical. A chain will propagate so long as there is another particle in contact with the last particle in the chain and that particle is in an angular position such that the line between the centers of the last particle in the chain and the current particle makes an angle that is less than a threshold angle 0 with respect to an average propagation direction. Then, the chain length is determined by the probability that the new inter-particle vector lies within the threshold angle 0 , which gives rise to the observed exponential decay of the distribution of lengths (of course, the force continues to propagate but in different directions). This explanation has its basis on a focusing effect wherein a force applied to a particle is propagated along a line of particles so long as the direction of forcing does not significantly deviate from the line dening the particles. Examples of this focusing effect can be seen with a row of coins, Newtons cradle in which the balls are hung from single strings instead of the usual two, and radiation damage in crystalline solids from neutron beams approximately aligned with a crystalline axis [15]. In the experiments considered here, the situation is only slightly different in that we do not a priori have particles

Fig. 4 Exponential ts of the length distributions for isotropic versus pure shear forcing states with arbitrary 0 and intensity thresholds (in this case 0 = 30 with intensity = 40% of maximum pixel intensity). Typical isotropic compression data are on top and pure shear data on bottom. The inset compares the two cases in a semi-log plot showing the small but consistent difference

respectively. The length of chains is plotted in units of particles. The bimodal particle sizes introduce uncertainties that are small compared with other parameters measured. The distribution decays exponentially as N = AeL/ where N is the number of chains of length L and is the characteristic decay length. The intensity and angle thresholds used for this pair of analyses are 40% of maximum pixel intensity and 30 , respectively. It will be shown below that these results depend only weakly on the former and not at all on the latter. Table 1 summarizes the results for the decay lengths of the force chain length distribution as a function of the angle and

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Exponential distribution of force chain lengths Table 1 Dependence of characteristic decay lengths on intensity and angle thresholds. Results were compiled from 18 and 20 pure shear and isotropic compression data sets, respectively

Threshold angle 30 2.6 30 Intensity (%) 40 50 60 3.0 2.4 2.7 2.3 2.4 2.0 2.3 20 2.7 2.8 2.5 2.7 2.3 2.4 2.0 2.2 10 2.8 2.9 2.5 2.6 2.3 2.5 2.1 2.2 5 2.8 2.8 2.3 2.9 2.3 2.6 2.0 2.2 Isotropic Pure shear Isotropic Pure shear Isotropic Pure shear Isotropic Pure shear

lined up in a straight line. Instead, we are presented with arbitrary geometries out of which some particles are lined up to permit propagation of force and we need to know under what conditions the alignment is sufciently straight to form force chains. Force propagates from particle i to particle i + 1 along the line joining the two centers. In our model, if the next segment, the line joining the centers of particles i + 1 and i + 2, makes an angle with respect to the rst segment that is less than a threshold angle 0 , the chain will continue. Of course, at each collision that is not straight on, some force will be transmitted to a particle that is not the most directly in line in order to conserve it. When the partitioning of the force is overwhelmingly asymmetric, the force will propagate in a nearly straight force chain and the force that is directed away from the current force chain is small. When the partitioning becomes more symmetric, the minor branch will carry more force and the chain will bend. Such minor branches constitute the structure that support the force chains and keep them from buckling. When the partitioning is sufciently symmetric, the secondary branch will carry enough force to be visible in the experiment and the original force chain will be split and, by our definition, terminated. The limiting deviation angle for a close-packed assembly of beads will be 30 , an angle at which a particle impinges symmetrically on two others in contact with each other. Given such a series of events with a xed probability of continuing the series, the distribution of series lengths decays exponentially. This is true for any Bernoulli process that consists of a sequence of independent random variables such that for each step of the sequence, one of two states prevails and the likelihood of one state prevailing over the other remains constant [16]. A simple example of a Bernoulli process is the number of times one could ip a coin and have the same side appear. The probability of getting a specic result (head or tail) per toss is 0.5 and the distribution of the number of times the same result is obtained (head or tail) is exponential with a characteristic sequence length of 1/ln(2) = 1.44, i.e., it takes 1.44 tosses for the probability of continuing to toss the

same side of the coin to be reduced by 1/e. In general, the sequence length that is characteristic of the distribution of sequence lengths is related to the probability p of getting a specic result by = 1/ln( p). (1)

In our case, the likelihood of chain propagation depends on nding the next particle that exceeds the intensity threshold and oriented within the threshold angle. The pure shear system has a longer characteristic length, meaning that the chance of nding the next particle to be oriented within the threshold angle is greater than in the isotropically forced system. According to Eq. (1) and the data presented in Table 1, the probability p of propagating the chain at each particle would range around 0.6 to 0.7 in our experiments. We are not prepared to justify this probability; it would depend on other factors such as the packing density and the details of support structure for the chain that prevents buckling. For example, the focusing effect mentioned near the beginning of this section would result in overestimating p from average geometric considerations such as those given in the previous paragraph. Thus, the chain length distributions were found to be exponential and the decay length characterized the manner of forcing. There are other indicators of forcing differences such as the anisotropy of chain orientation distribution that are more obvious, as seen in Fig. 1, but our study was aimed at the issue of exponential distribution of chain lengths. Other issues not addressed in this work include more ne-grained ways of considering force chains such as taking account of stress directions. Although we have preliminary data on 3D force chains obtained using magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) [12], we have not performed 2D and 3D experiments with the same particles because the different imaging techniques used (photoelasticity and MRI) currently dictate the particle

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shape be different (disks versus spheres). We will tackle this problem in the future.

5 Conclusions The distribution of chain lengths in 2D granular assemblies of photoelastic disks decay exponentially with the decay length depending on the way the system is stressed. Plausibility arguments for the exponential distribution of chain lengths are given in terms of the distribution being a Bernoulli process. Future work will address additional systems in both 2D and 3D. Preliminary results from 3D systems indicate that the distribution of chain lengths decays exponentially in 3D as well, with possibly different decay lengths than in otherwise comparable 2D systems. Further investigations of 3D systems will give insight into real-world applications such as under what types of forcing these structures change or collapse.
Acknowledgments This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. 0607813 and 0907695. We would like to thank Drs. R.P. Behringer, T.S. Majmudar, and S. A. Altobelli for informative discussions

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