FROM THE REVIEWS: PURE AND APPLIED GEOPHYSICS "In total, the book is lucidly written and offers a complementary approach to that usually found in the books treating soil and granular media mechanics. It presents a physicist's viewpoint of granular media. It can also be used by both the researchers and in courses of soil mechanics." PHYSICS TODAY "Duran's book is didactic in style and provides an excellent starting point for an advanced student to enter the field...the prose is clear...would be a valuable addition for those with interest in the field."

• 1. Introduction.- 1.1 Some Orders of Magnitude Defining the Problem.- 1.2 Economic Implications and Industrial Problems.- 1.3 Granular Materials and Geophysics.- 1.4 A Brief Historical Review.- 1.5 Prerequisites and Selected Bibliography.- 2. Interactions in Granular Media.- 2.1 A Single Particle and Its Environment.- 2.2 Interactions between Two Particles.- 2.3 A Single Particle on Top of a Granular Medium.- 2.4 Interactions Between Several Particles.- 3. Fluidization, Decompaction, and Fragmentation.- 3.1 The Static Properties of a Granular Pile.- 3.2 Dynamic Properties of a Granular Pile.- 4. Granular Media in a State of Flow.- 4.1 A Sand Pile in Equilibrium: The Angle of Repose.- 4.2 Avalanche Models.- 5. Mixing and Segregation.- 5.1 Introduction.- 5.2 Segregation by Vibration.- 5.3 Segregation by Shearing.- 5.4 Segregation in Oyama’s Three-Dimensional Drum.- 6. Numerical Simulations.- 6.1 Introduction.- 6.2 Simulations of Collisions.- 6.3 Molecular Dynamics (MD) Simulations.- 6.4 Simulation of the Dynamics of Contacts.- 6.5 Monte Carlo (MC) Simulations.- 6.6 Sequential Model of a Pile.