Simulation of disordered systems of cylinders. II. mechanical behaviour

Abstract

A model is simulated, with non-linear relaxation methods close to molecular dynamics, describing the mechanical behavior of a random array of hard and soft parallel cylinders. Moreover, the hard cylinders fluctuate slightly in their radii. The relation between compression and force is about the same for the whole system as it is for two cylinders (Hertz law), if only soft cylinders exist. Instead, the radius fluctuations of the hard cylinders produce drastic deviations between the macroscopic and the microscopic elastic response. For about 80 % of infinitely hard cylinders we observe an elastic « percolation » threshold