ICTS

I will highlight two aspects of granular systems: (i)    A sand grain cannot penetrate the space occupied by another, this gives rise to unilateral constraints.  Such constraints are inconvenient in the framework of conventional mechanics. I will instead present an alternative geometrical framework to deal with such situations and demonstrate its utility by using this framework to explain few experimental results.  (ii) The attractive interactions which are ubiquitous in atomic systems are replaced by dissipative frictional interactions in the world of granular physics.   I will also speak about our current understanding   on friction induced organisation in granular systems.