Mean-field granocentric approach in 2D & 3D polydisperse, frictionless packings

Abstract

We have studied the contact network properties of two- and three-dimensional polydisperse, frictionless sphere packings at the random closed packing density through simulations. We observe universal correlations between particle size and contact number that are independent of the polydispersity of the packing. This allows us to formulate a mean field version of the granocentric model to predict the contact number distribution . We find the predictions to be in good agreement with a wide range of discrete and continuous size distributions. The values of the two parameters that appear in the model are also independent of the polydispersity of the packing. Finally, we look at the nearest neighbour spatial correlations to investigate the validity of the granocentric approach. We find that both particle size and contact number are anti-correlated which contrasts with the assumptions of the granocentric model. Despite this shortcoming, the correlations are sufficiently weak which explains the good approximation of obtained from the model.

Keywords:

• packings
• disorder
• spatial correlations

Acknowledgments

Cathal B. O’Donovan would like to acknowledge funding from the School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin. EIC thanks the NSF for support under Career Award DMR-1255370. The authors are grateful for stimulating discussions with S. Hutzler, D. Weaire and M. Clusel.