{"id":1268,"date":"2026-05-21T09:25:52","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T07:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lmgc.univ-montp2.fr\/perso\/emilien-azema\/?p=1268"},"modified":"2026-05-21T09:25:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T07:25:52","slug":"origin-of-geometric-cohesion-in-nonconvex-granular-materials-interplay-between-interdigitation-and-rotational-constraints-enhancing-frictional-stability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lmgc.univ-montp2.fr\/perso\/emilien-azema\/2026\/05\/21\/origin-of-geometric-cohesion-in-nonconvex-granular-materials-interplay-between-interdigitation-and-rotational-constraints-enhancing-frictional-stability\/","title":{"rendered":"Origin of geometric cohesion in nonconvex granular materials: Interplay between interdigitation  and rotational constraints enhancing frictional stability"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">J. Bar\u00e9s, A. Regazzi, D. Aponte, S. Buonomo, M. Renouf, N. Estrada and E. Az\u00e9ma, E. Az\u00e9ma, Origin of geometric cohesion in nonconvex granular materials: Interplay between interdigitation and rotational constraints enhancing frictional stability,\u00a0<strong><strong>Phys Rev. E<\/strong><\/strong>\u00a01113, 055415 (2026)\u00a0\u2013 Editors\u2019 Suggestion \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We present a series of experiments investigating the local microstructure of cylindrical piles composed of highly concave particles. By systematically varying particle geometry\u2014from spheres to strongly nonconvex polypods\u2014as well as frictional properties and the number of branches, we explore how these parameters, together with the preparation protocol, shape the internal structure of the system. Using x-ray tomography combined with a dedicated image-analysis pipeline, we accurately extract the position, orientation, and contacts of every particle in each pile. This allows us to quantify the evolution of key structural observables as a function of particle geometry and preparation method. In particular, we measure the distributions of local packing fraction, coordination number, number of neighbors, and contact locations, along with particle-particle positional and orientational correlations. More importantly, we construct a new stability indicator that correlates perfectly with the observed pile stabilities, enabling us to identify the fundamental mechanisms responsible for\u00a0<em>geometrically<\/em> <em>induced cohesion\u00a0<\/em>in granular systems composed of noninterlocking particle shapes: interdigitation, rotational constraint, friction-mediated cohesion, and the ability of a pile to restabilize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>J. Bar\u00e9s, A. Regazzi, D. Aponte, S. Buonomo, M. Renouf, N. Estrada and E. Az\u00e9ma, E. Az\u00e9ma, Origin of geometric cohesion in nonconvex granular materials: Interplay between interdigitation and rotational constraints enhancing frictional stability,\u00a0Phys Rev. E\u00a01113, 055415 (2026)\u00a0\u2013 Editors\u2019 Suggestion \u2013 We present a series of experiments investigating the local microstructure of cylindrical piles composed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":1269,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lmgc.univ-montp2.fr\/perso\/emilien-azema\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lmgc.univ-montp2.fr\/perso\/emilien-azema\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lmgc.univ-montp2.fr\/perso\/emilien-azema\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lmgc.univ-montp2.fr\/perso\/emilien-azema\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lmgc.univ-montp2.fr\/perso\/emilien-azema\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lmgc.univ-montp2.fr\/perso\/emilien-azema\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1270,"href":"https:\/\/www.lmgc.univ-montp2.fr\/perso\/emilien-azema\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions\/1270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lmgc.univ-montp2.fr\/perso\/emilien-azema\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lmgc.univ-montp2.fr\/perso\/emilien-azema\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lmgc.univ-montp2.fr\/perso\/emilien-azema\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lmgc.univ-montp2.fr\/perso\/emilien-azema\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}