This enabled him to extract vector forces from images of photo-elastic disks, which are models for granular materials.
His research demonstrated the strongly fluctuating nature of granular flows.
Another aspect of his research involved the concept of jamming in granular materials.A native of Baltimore and the son of Frederick and Elizabeth Behringer, he obtained his BSc in Physics at Duke University in 1970, his PhD in Physics in 1975 also at Duke University, with Horst Meyer as his mentor, and was a research associate at Bell Labs under the direction of Guenter Ahlers from 1975 -77.
A faculty position at Wesleyan University was the next step and in 1982 he was appointed by Duke University, where he became a James B.