Granular Matter: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Powders have been studied extensively because they arise in a wide variety of fields, ranging from soil mechanics to manufacture of pharmaceuticals.

Only recently, however, with the deepening understanding of fractals, chaos, 1/f noise, and self-organization, has it been useful to study the mechanical properties of powders from a fundamental physical perspective.

This book collects articles by some of the foremost researchers in the field, including chapters on: the role of entropy in the specification of a powder, by S.F.

Edwards (Cambridge); discrete mechanics, by P.K. Haff (Duke); computer simulations of granular materials, by G.C.

Barker (Norwich); pattern formation and complexity in granular flow, by R.P.

Behringer and G.W. Baxter (Duke); avalanches in real sand piles, by A. Mehta (Birmingham); micromechanical models of failure, by M.J.

Adams (Unilever) and B.J. Briscoe (Imperial College); mixing and segregation in particle flows, by J.

Bridgwater (Birmingham); and hard-sphere colloidal suspensions, by P.

Bartlett (Bristol) and W. van Megen (Melbourne).