Patrick RICHARD - Research

I study the physics of granular materials. No one can seriously doubt that granular materials are ubiquitous in our daily lives. They play an important role in many of our industries, such as mining, agriculture, civil engineering and pharmaceutical manufacturing. They also are important for many geological processes (landslides, erosion, dunes migration...)
Sand piles, cereals in a silo, rock avalanches, sand dunes, grains of coffee... can all, at some level, be understood as disordered collections of particles that interact simply by getting in each other's way. Although the laws governing their motion are known for centuries, their behavior is complex and difficult to predict.

I also study (or have studied) hard sphere systems, imaging of biological systems and polymers.

• My publication list
• The discrete media group (in french)