This thesis contains three separate yet closely related topics: fracture, friction and simulation of mechanical response of a confined granular medium. The first two are experimental investigations and the last one is a numerical study. In the fracture part, I will describe how to break a piece of silicon in a controlled way such that the atomic nature of the fracture process can be revealed in a macroscopic experiment. In the friction part, I will present another experiment using almost exactly the same setup as for the low temperature fracture experiment to study the properties of static friction and explore ideas concerning the origin of friction. In the last part, I will construct a confined granular packing and study how pulses and continuous waves propagate through it. All these three topics are relevant to geophysical science. I sincerely hope that my study can ignite some fresh thinking in that area and help other researchers to design models that can make more precise earthquake predictions. / text

As computer generated special effects play an increasingly integral role in the development of films and other media, simulating granular material continues to be a challenging and resource intensive process. Solutions tend to be pieced together in order to address the complex and different behaviors of granular flow. As such, these solutions tend to be brittle, overly specific, and unnatural. With the introduction of a holistic 3-phase granular simulation, we can now create a reliable and adaptable granular simulation.Our solution improves upon this hybrid solution by addressing the issue of particle flow and correcting interpenetration amongst particles while maintaining the efficiency of the overall simulation. We achieve this by projecting particles onto a 2D manifold and implementing density correction using a quadratic solver. Particle updates are projected back into 3D to spread the particles apart on each frame.Keywords:

Submitted by Celso Magalhaes (celsomagalhaes@ufrrj.br) on 2017-09-18T11:33:32Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2016 - Jo?o M?rcio Sutana Alvim.pdf: 4276113 bytes, checksum: 115487153abb7bab43e2a012959a64e4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-18T11:33:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2016 - Jo?o M?rcio Sutana Alvim.pdf: 4276113 bytes, checksum: 115487153abb7bab43e2a012959a64e4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-21 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior - CAPES / In the classic set of unit operations of solid-liquid separation, sedimentation and filtration techniques stand out as critical processing steps for a broad spectrum of industrial activities. In this context, the proper knowledge of the properties and characteristics of the particulate systems directly involved represents an important aspect for the safe and efficient design of equipment and processes. Over the past 20 years, several methodologies were developed to study such phenomena, resulting in a huge library of sedimentation and filtration models available in the literature. This work presents a study based on the use of a particle-scale numerical simulation technique called Discrete Element Method (DEM), to describe the deposition of particulate solids in liquids. Tridimensional simulations of the sedimentation and filtration processes were carried out in a previously known flow field, as a way to test the applicability of the code and its capacity to virtually describe such processes. Cake properties, such as thickness, porosity and permeability were quantified over time and compared qualitatively and quantitatively with literature data. The effects of operational conditions, solids and liquid properties on the particulate model?s response were also investigated through a series of controlled numerical tests. The packing fraction values obtained in this work for the sedimentation process, when compared to the values found in the literature on similar conditions, showed a satisfactory agreement, with deviations smaller than 12% for all the points assessed / Dentro do conjunto cl?ssico das opera??es unit?rias de separa??o s?lido?l?quido, as t?cnicas de sedimenta??o e filtra??o se destacam como etapas de processamento cruciais para um amplo espectro de atividades da ind?stria. Neste contexto, o conhecimento adequado das propriedades e caracter?sticas dos sistemas particulados diretamente envolvidos representa um aspecto importante para o projeto seguro e eficiente de equipamentos e processos. Ao longo dos ?ltimos 20 anos, diversas metodologias foram desenvolvidas para estudar tais fen?menos, resultando em uma ampla biblioteca de modelos de sedimenta??o e filtra??o dispon?vel na literatura. O presente trabalho apresenta um estudo baseado no uso da simula??o num?rica em escala de part?cula, atrav?s do M?todo de Elementos Discretos ou DEM (do ingl?s ?Discrete Element Method?), para descrever a deposi??o de s?lidos particulados em suspens?es. Foram realizadas simula??es da sedimenta??o e filtra??o em tr?s dimens?es como forma de testar o funcionamento do c?digo e a sua capacidade de reproduzir virtualmente tais processos. As propriedades da torta, tais como espessura, porosidade e permeabilidade foram quantificadas ao longo do tempo e comparadas qualitativa e quantitativamente com dados da literatura. A sensibilidade do modelo desenvolvido a varia??es nas condi??es operacionais de simula??o e nas propriedades f?sicas do s?lido e do l?quido tamb?m foi analisada. Os dados de fra??o de s?lidos obtidos nas simula??es da sedimenta??o apresentaram uma concord?ncia satisfat?ria, quando comparados aos valores encontrados na literatura em condi??es similares, apresentando desvios menores do que 12% para todos os pontos avaliados.

Visual effects for film and animation often require simulated granular materials, such as sand, wheat, or dirt, to meet a director's needs. Simulating granular materials can be time consuming, in both computation and labor, as these particulate materials have complex behavior and an enormous amount of small-scale detail. Furthermore, a single cubic meter of granular material, where each grain is a cubic millimeter, would contain a billion granules, and simulating all such interacting granules would take an impractical amount of time for productions. This calls for a simplified model for granular materials that retains high surface detail and granular behavior yet requires significantly less computational time. Our proposed method simulates a minimal number of individual granules while retaining particulate detail on the surface by supporting surface particles with simplified interior granular models. We introduce a multi-state model where, depending on the material state of the interior granules, we replace interior granules with a simplified simulation model for the state they are in and automate the transitions between those states. The majority of simulation time can thus be focused on visible portions of the material, reducing the time spent on non-visible portions, while maintaining the appearance and behavior of the mass as a whole.

Les matériaux granulaires sont omniprésents, ils se trouvent aussi bien dans la nature que dans quelques applications industrielles. Parmi les applications industrielles utilisant les matériaux granulaires, on cite le mélange des poudres dans les industries agro-alimentaires, chimiques, métallurgiques et pharmaceutiques. La caractérisation et l'étude du comportement de ces matériaux sont nécessaires pour la compréhension de plusieurs phénomènes naturels comme le mouvement des dunes et les avalanches de neige, et de processus industriels tel que l'écoulement et le mélange des grains dans un mélangeur. Le comportement varié des matériaux granulaires les rend inclassables parmi les trois états de la matière : solide, liquide et gazeux. Ceci a fait dire qu'il s'agit d'un ``quatrième état'' de la matière, situé entre solide et liquide. L'objectif de ce travail est de concevoir et de mettre en oeuvre des méthodes efficaces d'éléments discrets pour la simulation et l'analyse des processus de mélange et de ségrégation des particules ellipsoïdales dans des mélangeurs culbutants industriels tels que le mélangeur à cerceaux. Dans la DEM l'étape la plus critique en terme de temps CPU est celle de la détection et de résolution de contact. Donc pour que la DEM soit efficace il faut optimiser cette étape. On se propose de combiner le modèle du potentiel géométrique et la condition algébrique de contact entre deux ellipsoïdes proposée par Wang et al., pour l'élaboration d'un algorithme efficace de détection de contact externe entre particules ellipsoïdales. Puis de de prouver un résultat théorique et d'élaborer un algorithme pour le contact interne. D'autre part, le couplage DEM-chaîne de Markov permet de diminuer très sensiblement le temps de simulation en déterminant la matrice de transition à partir d'une simulation à courte durée puis en calculant l'état du système à l'aide du modèle de chaîne de Markov. En effet, en utilisant la théorie des matrices strictement positives et en se basant sur le théorème de Perron-Frobenius on peut approximer le nombre de transitions nécessaires pour la convergence vers un état donné. / The importance of granular mixing for many process industries dealing with powders and grains can hardly be exaggerated. For example, chemical, food, and pharmaceutical industries usually require blending different particulate materials. High-quality products ranging from polymers and pharmaceuticals to ceramics and semiconductors increasingly depend on reliable granular flow and high quality and controllable granular mixing processes. In this work we implement a discrete element method for the simulation and analysis of mixing and segregation of ellipsoidal particles inside industrial tumbling blenders. The most critical step in term of time CPU in a discrete element simulation is the detection and resolution of contact. We use the algorithm of separating plane of ellipsoids and the algebraic condition on the separation of two ellipsoid algebraic conditions for the development of an efficient contact detection algorithm for ellipsoidal particles and to prove a theoretical result and a new algorithm for the internal contact. However, the coupling between DEM and Marckov chain makes it possible to very appreciably decrease the simulation time by determining the transition matrix of a short time simulation then by calculating the state from the system using the model from chain from Markov. Indeed, by using the theory of the strictly positive matrices and while basing oneself on the theorem of Perron-Frobenius we can approximate the number of transitions necessary for convergence towards a given state.