Signal Transmissibility in Marginal Granular Materials

TL;DR

This study investigates how mechanical signals propagate in marginal granular materials, revealing that their transmissibility resembles that of elastic media despite structural differences.

Contribution

It introduces a mode-based method to quantify transmissibility in granular packings and compares it with elastic systems, highlighting similarities and differences.

Findings

Transmissibility decreases exponentially with mode number.

Marginal granular packings exhibit transmissibility similar to elastic media.

Modes responsible for transmission differ structurally between systems.

Abstract

We examine the "transmissibility" of a simulated two-dimensional pack of frictionless disks formed by confining dilute disks in a shrinking, periodic box to the point of mechanical stability. Two opposite boundaries are then removed, thus allowing a set of free motions. Small free displacements on one boundary then induce proportional displacements on the opposite boundary. Transmissibility is the ability to distinguish different perturbations by their distant responses. We assess transmissibility by successively identifying free orthonormal modes of motion that have the {\em smallest} distant responses. The last modes to be identified in this "pessimistic" basis are the most transmissive. The transmitted amplitudes of these most transmissive modes fall off exponentially with mode number. Similar exponential falloff is seen in a simple elastic medium, though the responsible modes differ greatly in structure in the two systems. Thus the marginal pack's transmissibility is qualitatively similar to that of a simple elastic medium. We compare our results with recent findings based on the projection of the space of free motion onto interior sites.