Photoelastic study of acoustic wave propagation in grain packings

Description

By means of photoelasticity, we success in visualizing in real time the propagation of acoustic waves in a granular packing of cylinders. As previously mentioned by Nesterenko for the case of spherical grains, the nonlinearity of the contact law between grains induces a dependence of the wave velocity both on its amplitude and on the confinement force. Our experimental procedure allows an access to the local state of stress of individual grains as a function of time with a good accuracy. Our results concerning the wave velocity as a function of the amplitude, and of the confinement force, are compared to theoretical predictions and to the spherical beads case.

Abstract

International audience

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