PSI SEMINAR SERIES: 17 October 2007, 3:30PM

Angle of Repose-limited Rubble Piles with Rotation

David Minton

(Lunar and Planetary Lab, University of Arizona)

What would a self-gravitating, rotating rubble pile look like if every slope on the surface was at the angle of repose?

A new numerical technique, called ``seed growth" is demonstrated to solve the geometrical problem of constructing uniform density, three-dimensional objects for which the surface at every point is at a constant angle relative to the local horizontal. An implementation of the seed growth technique, called Sandyroid, was developed that generates angle of repose-limited bodies subject to certain simplifying constraints. The resulting shapes are compared with observations of some small bodies in the solar system.


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 Last Published 7/9/10