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The granular phase diagram

1997; Springer Science+Business Media; Volume: 86; Issue: 5-6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/bf02183630

1572-9613

Sergei E. Esipov, Thorsten Pöschel,

Material Dynamics and Properties

The kinetic energy distribution function satisfying the Boltzmann equation is studied analytically and numerically for a system of inelastic hard spheres in the case of binary collisions. Analytically, this function is shown to have a similarity form in the simple cases of uniform or steady-state flows. This determines the region of validity of hydrodynamic description. The latter is used to construct the phase diagram of granular systems, and discriminate between clustering instability and inelastic collapse. The molecular dynamics results support analytical results, but also exhibit a novel fluctuational breakdown of mean-field descriptions.