Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme
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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 30: Posters II
DY 30.49: Poster
Thursday, March 25, 2010, 16:00–18:00, Poster C
Tailoring the frictional properties of granular media — •Philipp Aurin1, Sonia Utermann1,2, and Matthias Schröter2 — 1Georg August Universität Göttingen — 2Max-Planck-Institut für Dynamik und Selbstorganisation
Where the theorist often neglects friction, this most intriguing of granular interactions, the experimentalist cannot, and instead must embrace it. Here, we go a step further and develop a protocol which allows us to use friction between grains as an experimental control parameter. We present two simple chemical etching procedures which alter the rugosity of soda-lime glass spheres: a procedure to smoothen the surface and one to roughen it. The rugosity has an influence on the frictional properties of the grains because it alters the topology and size of the microscopic contacts between grains. We characterise the spheres using atomic force microscopy. Additional underwater angle-of-repose measurements on our etched samples give us a measure of frictional properties in the bulk.