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  • Open Access

Displacement field visualization of particle beds after slow impacts using diffusing wave spectroscopy

Tetyana Bila, Gerhard Wurm*, and Jonathan E. Kollmer

  • *Contact author: gerhard.wurm@uni-due.de
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Phys. Rev. E 112, 015414 – Published 17 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/1xqd-bqtd

Abstract

For low-velocity impacts into granular materials, most of the impact energy is absorbed by the soil and not transferred into the ejected material. That raises the question of how large the volume of material is that is actually affected by the impact, that is, by subsurface material displacement or compaction. Here we use diffusing wave spectroscopy to detect the changes in local soil packing structure before, during, and after an impact has occurred. We clearly identify a (half)-spherical volume where particles are rearranged, with a radius substantially larger than the diameter of the impact crater. We also show that the size of the rearrangement zone follows similar scaling laws as the crater size.

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Phys. Rev. E 112, 015414– Published 17 July, 2025
  • Received 29 April 2025
  • Accepted 23 June 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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