Movimiento tipo Creep de frentes mojados en medios granulares bajo vibraciones d´ebiles

Abstract

We study the creep phenomena associated with non-thermal, temporal fluctuations in systems obeying the Edward’s thermodynamics. In imbibition experiments with granular media, we have observed that initially pinned wetting fronts move with an almost constant mean velocity vcr when small vibrations are applied. This creep motion is attributed to the packing density fluctuations in weakly vibrated granular media. The dependence of vcr on the vibration acceleration amplitude G obeys the relation reminiscent of the Arrhenius law in the case of thermal creep. The Hurst exponent is determined in addition to the dynamics of the formation of fronts in wet granular media