  We present experiments along with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of a
two-dimensional (2D) granular material in a Couette cell undergoing slow
shearing. The grains are disks confined between an inner, rotating wheel and a
fixed outer ring. The simulation results are compared to experimental studies
and quantitative agreement is found. Tracking the positions and orientations of
individual particles allows us to obtain density distributions, velocity and
particle rotation rate for the system. The key issue of this paper is to show
the extent to which {\em quantitative} agreement between an experiment and MD
simulations is possible. Besides many differences in model-details and the
experiment, the qualitative features are nicely reproduced. We discuss the
quantitative agreement/disagreement, give possible reasons, and outline further
research perspectives.
