Contact angle entropy and macroscopic friction in non-cohesive two dimensional granular packings

Abstract

We study the relationship between the granular contact angle distribution and local particle friction on the macroscopic friction and bulk modulus in non-cohesive disk packings. Molecular dynamics in two dimensions are used to simulate uniaxial loading-unloading cycles imposed on the granular packings. While macroscopic Mohr-friction depends on the granular pack geometric details, it reaches a stationary limit after a finite number of loading-unloading cycles that render well-defined values for bulk modulus, grain coordination, porosity, and friction. For random packings and for all polydispersities analyzed, we found that as inter-particle friction increases, the bulk modulus for the limit cycle decreases linearly, while the mean coordination number is reduced and the porosity increased, also as approximately linear functions. On the other hand, the macroscopic Mohr-friction increases in a monotonous trend with inter-particle friction. The latter result is compared to a theoretical model which assumes the existence of sliding planes corresponding to definite Mohr-friction values. The simulation results for macroscopic friction are well described by the theoretical model that incorporates the local neighbour angle distribution that can be quantified through the contact angle entropy. As local friction is increased, the limit entropy of the neighbour angle distribution is reduced, thus introducing the geometric component to granular friction. Surprisingly, once the limit cycle is reached, the Mohr-friction seem to be insensitive to polydispersity as has been recently reported.