Moisture induced Ageing in Granular Media

Abstract

We present experiments showing that a granular system of small beads does exhibit ageing properties : its maximum stability angle is measured to increase logarithmically with resting time, i.e. the time elapsed before performing the measure. We show that humidity is the crucial ingredient responsible for this behaviour : while ageing effects are important at intermediate humidity, they disappear at vanishing humidity. On the basis of these experimental results, we propose a model based on the activated condensation of liquid bridges between the beads. Within this picture, we are able to reproduce both the waiting-time and humidity dependence of the ageing properties.