A Unified Glassy Rheology for Granular Matter

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zeng, Zhikun, Xu, Jiazhao, Li, Hanyu, Zhang, Shiang, Yuan, Houfei, Zhou, Chijin, Dai, Xueliang, Lu, Haiyang, Wang, Xin, Zhao, Jun, Jiang, Yonglun, Ge, Zhuan, Huang, Gang, Xia, Chengjie, Sun, Jianqi, Xi, Yan, Wang, Yujie
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866918448948314112
author Zeng, Zhikun
Xu, Jiazhao
Li, Hanyu
Zhang, Shiang
Yuan, Houfei
Zhou, Chijin
Dai, Xueliang
Lu, Haiyang
Wang, Xin
Zhao, Jun
Jiang, Yonglun
Ge, Zhuan
Huang, Gang
Xia, Chengjie
Sun, Jianqi
Xi, Yan
Wang, Yujie
author_facet Zeng, Zhikun
Xu, Jiazhao
Li, Hanyu
Zhang, Shiang
Yuan, Houfei
Zhou, Chijin
Dai, Xueliang
Lu, Haiyang
Wang, Xin
Zhao, Jun
Jiang, Yonglun
Ge, Zhuan
Huang, Gang
Xia, Chengjie
Sun, Jianqi
Xi, Yan
Wang, Yujie
contents Granular flows are ubiquitous in nature and industrial applications, yet a complete continuum theory remains a long-standing challenge. The leading empirical approach, μ(I) rheology, lacks microscopic foundations and becomes multivalued in dense, slowly sheared flows where nonlocal corrections are required. Exploiting state-of-the-art high-speed X-ray tomography to investigate microscopic dynamics of dense granular flows in a Couette geometry, we establish a new, universal constitutive law spanning quasi-static to inertial regimes based on structural relaxation, resolving the fundamental difficulty in the original μ(I) framework. By further establishing a non-equilibrium statistical framework for granular flows, we demonstrate an intrinsic analogy between driven granular matter and hard-sphere liquids owing to their identical Carnahan-Starling equation of state, naturally explaining our rheological approach and the emergence of glassy behaviors. Our framework unifies granular rheology with the broader physics of disordered systems and provides a complete, microscopically-based theoretical framework for dense granular flow.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_14109
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Unified Glassy Rheology for Granular Matter
Zeng, Zhikun
Xu, Jiazhao
Li, Hanyu
Zhang, Shiang
Yuan, Houfei
Zhou, Chijin
Dai, Xueliang
Lu, Haiyang
Wang, Xin
Zhao, Jun
Jiang, Yonglun
Ge, Zhuan
Huang, Gang
Xia, Chengjie
Sun, Jianqi
Xi, Yan
Wang, Yujie
Soft Condensed Matter
Statistical Mechanics
Granular flows are ubiquitous in nature and industrial applications, yet a complete continuum theory remains a long-standing challenge. The leading empirical approach, μ(I) rheology, lacks microscopic foundations and becomes multivalued in dense, slowly sheared flows where nonlocal corrections are required. Exploiting state-of-the-art high-speed X-ray tomography to investigate microscopic dynamics of dense granular flows in a Couette geometry, we establish a new, universal constitutive law spanning quasi-static to inertial regimes based on structural relaxation, resolving the fundamental difficulty in the original μ(I) framework. By further establishing a non-equilibrium statistical framework for granular flows, we demonstrate an intrinsic analogy between driven granular matter and hard-sphere liquids owing to their identical Carnahan-Starling equation of state, naturally explaining our rheological approach and the emergence of glassy behaviors. Our framework unifies granular rheology with the broader physics of disordered systems and provides a complete, microscopically-based theoretical framework for dense granular flow.
title A Unified Glassy Rheology for Granular Matter
topic Soft Condensed Matter
Statistical Mechanics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.14109