In materials science, fragile matter is a

granular material A granular material is a conglomeration of discrete solid, macroscopic particles characterized by a loss of energy whenever the particles interact (the most common example would be friction when grains collide). The constituents that compose ...

that is jammed solid. Everyday examples include

bean A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes t ...

s getting stuck in a hopper in a whole food shop, or milk powder getting jammed in an upside-down bottle. The term was coined by physicist Michael Cates, who asserts that such circumstances warrant a new class of materials. The jamming thus described can be unjammed by mechanical means, such as tapping or shaking the container, or poking it with a stick. Cates proposed that such jammed systems differ from ordinary solids in that if the direction of the applied stress changes, the jam will break up. Sometimes the change of direction required is very small. Perhaps the simplest example is a pile of

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a soil texture, textur ...

, which is solid in the sense that the pile sustains its shape despite the force of gravity. Slight tilting or vibration is enough to enable the grains to shift, collapsing the pile. Not all jammed systems are fragile, i.e.

foam Foams are materials formed by trapping pockets of gas in a liquid or solid. A bath sponge and the head on a glass of beer are examples of foams. In most foams, the volume of gas is large, with thin films of liquid or solid separating the ...

. Shaving foam is jammed because the bubbles are tightly packed together under the isotropic stress imposed by

atmospheric pressure Atmospheric pressure, also known as barometric pressure (after the barometer), is the pressure within the atmosphere of Earth. The standard atmosphere (symbol: atm) is a unit of pressure defined as , which is equivalent to 1013.25 millibar ...

. If it were a fragile solid, it would respond

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...

ally to

shear stress Shear stress, often denoted by (Greek: tau), is the component of stress coplanar with a material cross section. It arises from the shear force, the component of force vector parallel to the material cross section. '' Normal stress'', on ...

, however small. But because bubbles deform, foam actually responds elastically provided that the stress is below a threshold value. Fragile matter is also not to be confused with cases in which the particles have adhered to one another ("caking").

References

* {{cite book , last = Cates , first = Michael , authorlink = Michael Cates , title = Soft and Fragile Matter , publisher =

CRC Press The CRC Press, LLC is an American publishing group that specializes in producing technical books. Many of their books relate to engineering, science and mathematics. Their scope also includes books on business, forensics and information tec ...

, year = 2000 , isbn = 0-7503-0724-2 Granularity of materials