Thermal conductivity associated with a bead-bead contact decorated by a liquid bridge

We report an experimental study of the heat transport along a chain of macroscopic beads: at one end, one bead is periodically heated and we record the resulting temperature variations of another bead as a function of position and time. The experimental results show that the chain behaves like a high-order low-pass filter. The measurement of the associated cut-off frequency makes it possible to determine accurately the resistance of the bead-bead contact: we make use of the experimental setup for studying the effects of liquid bridges decorating the bead-bead contacts, which provides important clues for understanding the thermal properties of partially wet granular matter. Copyright EDP Sciences/Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 2005