ABSTRACT
In the past ten years, there has been a large attention given to the study of non-cohesive granular media (Jaeger et al. 1988; Rajchenbach 1990). A common characteristic of these studies is that granular motion occurs in a relative thin boundary layer (around ten grains) at the surface (Jaeger & Nagel 1992) independent of the size of the sample. On the other hand, recent experiments have explored the relatively new subject of cohesive granular media such as “humid granular” media. The presence of capillary bridges between the grains generate adhesive forces which strongly affect the stability of the samples (Albert et al. 1997; Albert et al. 1999; Hornbaker et al. 1997; Bocquet et al. 1998; Ursini et al. 2002; Fraysse et al. 1999; Valverde et al. 2000; Quintanilla et al. 2001; Geromichalos et al. 2003).
