Avalanches in (1 + 1)-dimensional piles: a molecular dynamics study

(Received 1 September 1992, revised 13 June 1993, accepted 16 June 1993)

Abstract
We numerically study the piles generated by continuously dropping a particle on the top of a stable pile in (1 + 1) dimension. We use a code which has an implementation of static friction in the Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations of granular material. We study several properties of the pile-the time evolution of mass and slope, and the avalanche size (and duration) distribution. We also study the effect of gravity on the properties of the pile. We find that the angle of repose decreases as gravity is increased. On the other hand, gravity seems to have little effect on the angle of marginal stability . We also find that the angles ( and ) are different between the piles of monodisperse and polydisperse particles. We suggest a possible explanation for these dependencies of the angles.