Recent work from the SMF Fracture group on the shock and release of sand has been published in Applied Physics Letters
The paper describes research into the shock response of sand during loading at very high rates, and provides the first data describing the release of the material from the shocked state. The work originated in programme supported by QinetiQ, studying the fundamental properties of sand in order to model protective structures for defence applications. The work was initiated by Dr. Chris Braithwaite and Dr. Nick Taylor and is being continued by James Perry in his PhD programme. The full text of the paper can be found here.