Non-Linearity and Breakdown in Soft Condensed Matter: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Calcutta, India 1–9 December 1993

E. Guyon (auth.), Kamal K. Bardhan, Bikas K. Chakrabarti, Alex Hansen (eds.)3540586520, 9783540586524

There have been considerable advances in recent times in understanding many common material processes that are of practical importance, such as nonlinear response, fracture, breakdown, earthquakes, packing and granular flow. This has been mainly due to new applications of statistical physics, including percolation theory, fractal concepts and self-organized criticality. This collection of articles brings together research in those closely allied fields. It deals with problems in materials science involving random geometries and nonlinearity at a mesoscopic scale, and problems where randomness in time evolution is as crucial as the geometry itself.

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Table of contents :
Introduction….Pages 1-4
Decompaction, fluidisation and segregation in a 2D sandpile….Pages 5-17
Granular flow: Some experimental results….Pages 18-27
Density waves in granular flow….Pages 28-39
Height fluctuations and pressure distribution in a model of random close packing of mono-size discs….Pages 40-46
Statics and dynamics of sandpiles: Some phenomenological ideas….Pages 47-53
Some physical properties of the Burridge-Knopoff model….Pages 54-77
Jerky flow, stick-slip in geological materials and earthquake models….Pages 78-106
Dynamics and structure of displacement fronts in two-dimensional porous media….Pages 107-123
Heterogeneous porous media: Fronts and noise….Pages 124-133
Pattern formation in particulate complex fluids: A guided tour….Pages 134-150
Solvable models of material breakdown….Pages 151-170
Fracture and other breakdown phenomena in disordered solids….Pages 171-185
Spring-network and finite-element models for elasticity and fracture….Pages 186-201
Ginzburg-Landau form description for steps on creep curves….Pages 202-220
Laboratory simulation of dielectric breakdown….Pages 221-234
Fracture roughness and physical implications….Pages 235-247
Rock fracturing by gas loading for well stimulation….Pages 248-260
Physics of random nonlinear composites….Pages 261-270
Scaling behavior of electric response in a non-linear composite….Pages 271-287
Non-linear effects at the critical supercurrent in Josephson Junctions arrays….Pages 288-308
Field-induced transport in random media….Pages 309-330
Percolation and tunneling in the quantum hall effect….Pages 331-340