Yielding and microstructure in a 2D jammed material under shear deformation†
Abstract
The question of how a disordered material's microstructure translates into macroscopic mechanical response is central to understanding and designing materials like pastes, foams and metallic glasses. Here, we examine a 2D soft jammed material under cyclic shear, imaging the structure of ∼5 × 104 particles. Below a certain strain amplitude, the structure becomes conserved at long times, while above, it continually rearranges. We identify the boundary between these regimes as a yield strain, defined without