Non-Linearity and Breakdown in Soft Condensed Matter

This book contains up-to-date (theoretical and experimental) review articles by experts in solid-state physics and materials science and addresses physicists as well as engineers. It should also be of considerable interest to graduate students.

Inhalt
Decompaction, fluidisation and segregation in a 2D sandpile.- Granular flow: Some experimental results.- Density waves in granular flow.- Height fluctuations and pressure distribution in a model of random close packing of mono-size discs.- Statics and dynamics of sandpiles: Some phenomenological ideas.- Some physical properties of the Burridge-Knopoff model.- Jerky flow, stick-slip in geological materials and earthquake models.- Dynamics and structure of displacement fronts in two-dimensional porous media.- Heterogeneous porous media: Fronts and noise.- Pattern formation in particulate complex fluids: A guided tour.- Solvable models of material breakdown.- Fracture and other breakdown phenomena in disordered solids.- Spring-network and finite-element models for elasticity and fracture.- Ginzburg-Landau form description for steps on creep curves.- Laboratory simulation of dielectric breakdown.- Fracture roughness and physical implications.- Rock fracturing by gas loading for well stimulation.- Physics of random nonlinear composites.- Scaling behavior of electric response in a non-linear composite.- Non-linear effects at the critical supercurrent in Josephson Junctions arrays.- Field-induced transport in random media.- Percolation and tunneling in the quantum hall effect.