Physics of Gas Marbles

PhyGaMa is an ANR PRC 2020 project conjointly leaded by Laboratoire NAVIER, Rhéophysique team and Laboratoire FAST, Granulaire et Suspension team with F. Rouyer, Y. Khidas, V. Langlois, O. Pitois, X. Chateau - Georges Gauthier, Antoine Seguin

Research in line with the pioneer work of Pickering succeeded recently to produce new objects which can be described as gas pockets in air and are named gas marbles[1]. They are made of gas surrounded by a layer of grains constrained by thin liquid film in gas environment. The exceptional mechanical strength of their granular shell promise them to many applications [2]. Among these, we note here that using gas marbles can be relevant for the generation of materials with hierarchical porosity. Moreover, these new hollow marbles offer a promising route to new vibration dampers. Gas marbles were created by closing over itself after detachment under gravity of a granular film created by dipping and removing of a solid horizontal frame through a particle raft at the interface of a soap solution.

2 PhDs have started in automn 2020 :