Soft vibrations reveal warning signs before granular crystals yield

edited by Lisa Lock , reviewed by Robert Egan

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Add as preferred source Grains are arranged in a regular pattern, and a shear deformation—like sliding a deck of cards sideways—is applied. The system is then slightly perturbed, and the frequencies at which it vibrates are analyzed theoretically. This revealed that, just before the crystal begins to break, unusual vibrational properties emerge that differ from those of ordinary solids. Credit: Fumiaki Nakai Sand, powders, and other collections of visible-sized grains are found throughout daily life, from food and pharmaceuticals to soils and industrial materials. When grains of similar size are arranged regularly, they can form a strong crystal-like solid. Yet what happens inside such an ordered structure immediately before it begins to break has remained unclear.