Since July 2010, the Granular Dynamics Laboratory is operative - originally in room "010" and (from november 2012) - in room "012" (ground floor of Fermi Building of the Physics Department) at the Sapienza unit of ISC. The laboratory includes two main experimental setups:
- Vertical vibration (2d and 3d granular experiments): an electrodynamic shaker LDS V455, which can reach a maximum acceleration of 105g, powered by a PA1000L power amplifier. The amplifier receives the signal from a signal generator board in a personal computer. Particle tracking data are collected by a fast camera (MIKROTRON EO-SENS CL) which reaches 506 frames per second at full resolution (1280x1024) or faster at reduced resolutions.
- Inclined plane with vibrating pistons (2d granular experiments): the inclined aluminium plane has a variable tilt-angle to control effective gravity, lateral lighting, two vibrating pistons (actuated by rotating engines) on the short sides (usually the topmost and the lowest ones) inject energy. Particle images are collected by a new fast camera (Photron MiniUX50) which gets 1.3Mp at 2Kfps with colours.