Granular Materials Committee

2024 Granular Materials Committee Student Winners

The Granular Materials Committee hosted the 2024 video competition for graduate students to present their research findings in experimental, computational and theoretical studies (students were allowed to submit in one of these categories) within the broad field of granular materials. As nearly every product, commodity, or infrastructure is constituted from, derived from, or supported by particulate materials through mining, agriculture, and/or chemical processing, the competition spans the engineering disciplines, applied mathematics, materials science and physics. The following winners were selected by a distinguished panel of jurors, from a number of outstanding submissions.

• Shubjot Singh (Theoretical Category)

  

  Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
  

  Title: Effect of Particle Shape on the Elastic Anisotropy of Granular Materials Theoretical

  Statement from judges:  "“The author has developed an approach for including the effect of particle shape on the elastic anisotropy of granular materials. The approach follows a thermodynamic framework in which the potential function is enriched by including a contact area fabric in addition to the contact network fabric. In this formulation, the inherent anisotropy correlated to the shape characteristics of the assembly and the induced anisotropy is linked to the adaptations in the contact area fabric. The model results for both inherent and induced anisotropy are compared against those obtained from discrete element simulations.”

  Abstract      Video

• Aizhan Zhakupova (Experimental category)

  Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, Texas USA
  Title: Understanding the Controls of the Transient Friction of Granular Materials

  Statement from judges: “The author developed an experimental campaign to study transient friction in non-cohesive silica powder. Experiments were performed in a customized rheometer designed to study transient rather than steady-state frictional behavior. Observed behaviors were compared with theoretical predictions of the rate-and-state friction model. The time-dependence and material thickness dependence of transient friction was carefully studied by varying hold times prior to sliding and the layer of sheared material in the rheometer. The author proposes to expand the current study by varying humidity and by including acoustic monitoring of the material.” 
  

  Abstract      Video

Previous Student Competition Winners

• 2023

  2023 WINNERS
  
  

  • Pouriya Pirmoradi (Computational Category), Eindhoven University of Technology,  Department of the Built Environment, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
  • Shumaiya Ferdoush (Experimental Category), Purdue University,  School of Mechanical Engineering,  West Lafayette, IN, USA
  • Muhammad Shahin (Theoretical Category), Purdue University, School of Mechanical Engineering, Ray W. Herrick Laboratories, West Lafayette, IN, USA

  2023 COMPETITION CHAIRS
  
  

  • Marcial Gonzalez, Ph.D., Purdue University
  • Anthony D. Rosato, Ph.D., New Jersey Institute of Technology

  2023 COMPETITION JUDGES
  
  

  • Anil Misra, Ph.D., University of Kansas
  • Ryan Hurley Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University
  • Payam Poorsolhjouy, Ph.D., Eindhoven University of Technology

• 2022

  2022 WINNERS
  • Abhishek Paul (Computational category), Purdue University
  • Noor Mili (Computational category), New Jersey Institute of Technology
  • Dawa Seo (Experimental category), Northwestern University
  
  2022 COMPETITION CHAIRS
  • Marcial Gonzalez, Ph.D., Purdue University
  • Anthony D. Rosato, Ph.D., New Jersey Institute of Technology
  
  2022 COMPETITION JUDGES
  • Anil Misra, Ph.D., University of Kansas
  • Mahdia Hattab, Ph.D., Universite de Lorraine
  • Matthew Kuhn, Ph.D., University of Portland
  • Ryan Hurley, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University

   

  
  

   

Award Recipients

• EMI Leonardo da Vinci Award

  2018
  Steve Waiching Sun, Ph.D. 
  Columbia University

• EMI Fellows

  2016
  Pierre-Yves Hicher, F.EMI
  Research Institute In Civil Eng. and Mechanics
  
  Ning Lu, Ph.D., F.EMI, F.ASCE
  Colorado School of Mines
  
  Ramesh Babu Malla, Ph.D., F.EMI, F.ASCE
  University of Connecticut
  
  2015
  Pierre-Yves Hicher, Ph.D. F.EMI
  Research Institute In Civil Eng. and Mechanics
  
  Ramesh Babu Malla, Ph.D., F.EMI, F.ASCE
  University of Connecticut
  

• Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize

  2023
  Steve Waiching Sun, Ph.D. for his fundamental contributions to computational and data-driven poromechanics.