Stephan Herminghaus

This is a monograph written for the young and advanced researcher who is entering the field of wet granular matter, keen to understand the basic physical principles governing this state of soft matter. It treats wet granulates as a ternary system consisting of the grains, a primary, and a secondary fluid. After generally addressing wetting phenomena and outlining the basic facts on dry granular systems, a chapter on basic mechanisms and their effects is dedicated to every region of the ternary phase diagram. Effects of grain shape and roughness are considered as well. Rather than addressing engineering aspects like existing books on this topic do, this book aims to provide a generalized framework suitable for those who want to understand these systems on a more fundamental basis. It spans a wide scope of questions, ranging from possible general principles behind the emergence of structure and pattern, to the interpretation of geological outcrop features we encounter in nature.

Contents:

• Introduction:
  • The Significance of Wet Granular Matter
  • Energy Scales
  • Typical Questions to be Asked
  • How We Shall Proceed
• Grains and Granular Fluids:
  • Grains
  • Granular Fluids
  • The Great Gamsberg: A Fossilized Oasis From The Karoo
  • Conclusions
• Wetting:
  • Planar Substrates
  • Rough Substrates
  • Conclusions
• Capillary Forces:
  • Capillary Bridge Between Flat Walls
  • Capillary Bridge Between Spherical Bodies
  • Capillary Bridge Between Irregular Grains
  • Force Networks
• Wet Granular Gases:
  • Dynamical Aspects of Capillary Bridges
  • Free Cooling and Clustering
  • Granular Liquid–Gas Coexistence
  • Collective Phenomena Far From Thermal Equilibrium
  • Conclusions
• Wet Granular Piles:
  • Geometrical Aspects of Granular Piles
  • Regimes of Wetness
  • Mechanical Properties of Wet Granular Piles
  • Phase Transitions in Wet Granular Piles
  • Conclusions
• Special Topics:
  • The Physics of Sand Castles
  • Immiscible Granular Suspensions
  • Quicksand and Quickclay

Readership: Advanced researchers who are entering the field of wet granular matter, keen to understand the basic physical principles governing this state of soft matter.

Key Features:

• A unique statistical physics/dynamical systems approach to wet granular materials
• Covers the whole range of possible liquid content of a wet granulate and elaborates on the impending transitions of material properties
• Includes the full range from microscopic fundamental science to geological outcrops