Abe Clark, Entered 2008/09
Office Location: 092
Office Phone: 919-660-2558
Email Address: ahc9@phy.duke.edu
Specialties:
Nonlinear dynamics and complex systems
Education:
MSEE, Texas Tech University, 2008
BSEE, Texas Tech University, 2006
Research Categories: Nonlinear Dynamics, Granular Physics
Current projects: Granular Impact Dynamics
Research Description: My research at Duke has been with Dr. Behringer's group, studying granular physics. Our group is perhaps best known for granular experiments which use photo-elastic disks to study forces in granular materials. That is, we can see which particles are contacting other particles and bearing force loads as the system evolves (e.g. subject to shear).
My thesis project at Duke focuses on the dynamics of granular impact. By using photoelastic disks and a high-speed camera, I study particle-scale mechanisms which are responsible for the loss of energy by an intruder as it impacts the granular material and comes to a stop. This work was recently published in PRL (see Recent Publications below) and was the subject of a Focus story in "Physics" (http://physics.aps.org/articles/v5/137).
Aditionally, I have worked on a project studying the dynamics of crater formation by a jet of gas impinging on a granular bed (with applications to a retrograde rocket landing on a planetary surface, supported by NASA), as well as a project which models industrial granular impeller-mixers (supported by Procter & Gamble, see paper in "Granular Matter").
At Texas Tech, my primary research was in charged particle optics and photomultiplier tube design. We used numerical modeling software to study electric fields and electron trajectories inside photomultiplier tubes.
Areas of Interest:
Nonlinear Dynamics
Granular Physics
Recent Publications
- A.H. Clark, R.P. Behringer, Granular Impact Model as an Energy-Depth Relation, Europhys. Lett., vol. 101 no. 6 (March 26, 2013), pp. 64001 [article], [doi] [abs].
- A.H. Clark, L. Kondic, R.P. Behringer, Particle Scale Dynamics in Granular Impact, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 109 (December 7, 2012) [PhysRevLett.109.238302], [doi] [abs].
- Abram H. Clark, Paul Mort, Robert P. Behringer, Coarse graining for an impeller-driven mixer system, Granular Matter, vol. 14 no. 2 (2012), pp. 283-288 [available here], [doi] [abs].