This tool simulates the athermal densification of soft, frictionless spheres from an initial sparsely connected phase to a mechanically stable, jammed phase. Jammed phase, for a system of particles, is defined as a granular matter phase which lies at the transition between a liquid-like state and a solid-like state. Such jammed phases are an important class of heterogeneous materials with diverse functional applications. This tool allows user-defined size distribution of spheres, initial packing fraction and the soft-sphere contact mechanics law. Mathematical optimization methods are then employed to achieve a mechanically stable and energetically favorable jammed configuration as the system of spheres is compressed in an affine manner. Users can download various statistical and geometrical information about the jammed system such as, spatial distribution of the spheres (including VTK graphics), average contact area, coordination number, internal pressure, radial distribution functions etc.

1. C. S. O’Hern, L. E. Silbert, A. J. Liu, and S. R. Nagel, \"Jamming at zero temperature and zero applied stress: The epitome of disorder\", Phys. Rev. E 68, 011306 (2003). 2. K. C. Smith, M. Alam, and T. S. Fisher, \"Athermal jamming of soft frictionless Platonic solids\", Phys. Rev. E 82, 051304 (2010). 3. S. Torquato and F. Stillinger, \"Jammed hard-particle packings: From Kepler to Bernal and beyond\", Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 2633 (2010).

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Siew La Pang; Ishan Srivastava; Timothy S Fisher (2012), "Jamming of Soft Frictionless Spheres," https://nanohub.org/resources/jamming. (DOI: 10.4231/D39K45S2N).

  BibTex | EndNote

1. disorder
2. granular media
3. heterogeneous materials
4. Nano assembly
5. nemsnanofluidics
6. soft materials