Physics of Compaction of Fine Cohesive Particles

Abstract

Fluidized fractal clusters of fine particles display critical-like dynamics at the jamming transition, characterized by a power law relating consolidation stress with volume fraction increment. At a critical stress clusters are disrupted and there is a crossover to a logarithmic law resembling the phenomenology of soils. We measure _ _ _@__1=__=@ log_^ c / Bo0:2 g , where Bog is the ratio of interparticle attractive force (in the fluidlike regime) to particle weight. This law suggests that compaction is ruled by the internal packing structure of the jammed clusters at nearly zero consolidation.