Sliding friction on wet and dry sand

We show experimentally that the sliding friction on sand is greatly reduced by the addition of some-but not too much-water. The formation of capillary water bridges increases the shear modulus of the sand, which facilitates the sliding. Too much water, on the other hand, makes the capillary bridges...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2014-05, Vol.112 (17), p.175502-175502, Article 175502
Main Authors: Fall, A, Weber, B, Pakpour, M, Lenoir, N, Shahidzadeh, N, Fiscina, J, Wagner, C, Bonn, D
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bridges (structures)
Capillarity
Civil Engineering
Coalescing
Engineering Sciences
Friction
Granular materials
Sand
Shear modulus
Sliding friction
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Summary:We show experimentally that the sliding friction on sand is greatly reduced by the addition of some-but not too much-water. The formation of capillary water bridges increases the shear modulus of the sand, which facilitates the sliding. Too much water, on the other hand, makes the capillary bridges coalesce, resulting in a decrease of the modulus; in this case, we observe that the friction coefficient increases again. Our results, therefore, show that the friction coefficient is directly related to the shear modulus; this has important repercussions for the transport of granular materials. In addition, the polydispersity of the sand is shown to also have a large effect on the friction coefficient.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.175502