Flow and failure of soils and slurries: insight from non-equilibrium physics

Predicting particulate material properties in contexts including soil liquefaction and slurry flow is a longstanding engineering problem. A key conceptual challenge is their inherent out-of-equilibrium nature: particulates don’t melt or freeze in the usual sense but do, intriguingly, transition nonetheless between flowable and solid-like states. We will use novel theoretical models to generate state diagrams for particulates (analogous to equilibrium phase-diagrams), characterising this fascinating out-of-equilibrium behaviour. We then test the model predictions in engineering flows of soil and slurries using particle-based simulation. Through fundamental advance, we thus aim to predict flow and failure of particulates in natural and industrial scenarios.