抄録
Powders and other granular media are composed of discrete particles and force transmission through a system of particles can only occur via the interparticle contacts. The distribution of contact orientations affects the magnitude of the contact forces which are not uniformly distributed. Since the contact stiffness and contact area are functions of the contact force, the manner in which the contact forces are distributed determines the shear strength, compressibility and conductivity characteristics of granular media. The paper reviews the current understanding of force transmission in granular media as gleaned from both physical experiments and numerical simulations and discusses the mechanical implications.
