Vibrational Collapse of Hexapod Packings

Columns made of convex noncohesive grains like sand collapse after being released from a confining container. However, structures built from non-convex grains can be stable without external support. In the current experiments, we investigate the effect of vibration on destroying such columns. The change of column height during vertical vibration, can be well characterized by stretched exponential relaxation when the column is short, which is in agreement with previous work, while a faster collapse happens when the column is tall. We investigate the collapse after the fast process including its dependence on column geometry, and on interparticle and basal friction.