Granular material asteroids. Some examples of granular materials are snow, nuts, coal, sand, rice, coffee, corn flakes, fertilizer, and bearing balls. Research into granular materials is thus directly applicable and goes back at least to Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, whose law of friction was originally stated for granular materials. Granular materials are commercially important in applications as diverse as pharmaceutical industry, agriculture, and energy production. Powders are a special class of granular material due to their small particle size, which makes them more cohesive and more easily suspended in a gas. The soldier/physicist Brigadier Ralph Alger Bagnold was an early pioneer of the
Silt out which is also likely to disturb silt where it makes contact, and the underwater work may also disturb silt. For these reasons surface supplied divers must often operate in very poor visibility. Remotely operated underwater vehicles and submersibles manoeuver by using thrusters, and the water blast from thrusters has a similar effect to the wash from fins. Silt outs are dangerous situations for scuba divers, particularly in enclosed spaces or when there is no direct access to the surface (an overhead environment). Training courses in overhead environment diving, such as wreck or cave diving teaches various methods to cope with