Refraction of shear zones in granular materials

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that shear zones in layered granular materials refract at interfaces following Snell's law, supported by a variational model and confirmed through 3D discrete element simulations.

Contribution

It reveals a novel refraction phenomenon of shear zones in granular materials, linking it to optical refraction laws and validating it with simulations.

Findings

Shear zones refract at material interfaces.

Shear zones follow Snell's law.

Model predictions confirmed by simulations.

Abstract

We study strain localization in slow shear flow focusing on layered granular materials. A heretofore unknown effect is presented here. We show that shear zones are refracted at material interfaces in analogy with refraction of light beams in optics. This phenomenon can be obtained as a consequence of a recent variational model of shear zones. The predictions of the model are tested and confirmed by 3D discrete element simulations. We found that shear zones follow Snell's law of light refraction.