Search results for "characteristic length"
showing 10 items of 22 documents
Growth of Domains and Scaling in the Late Stages of Phase Separation and Diffusion-Controlled Ordering Phenomena
1991
These lectures consider the kinetics of phase changes, induced by a sudden change of external thermodynamic parameters. E.g., we treat a system with a second-order transition at a critical temperature Tc (Fig. 1, left part). For T0 > Tc the system is disordered, while for T < Tc there is an order parameter ± ψ (implying one-component orderings, e.g., an Ising model; later we discuss generalizations). We consider a “quenching experiment”: The system is brought from an initially disordered state at T0 to a state at T where in equilibrium the system should be orderedl. Since no sign of ψ is preferred, the system starts forming locally ordered regions of either sign, separated by domain walls. …
Thermomechanical effects in the flow of a fluid in porous media
2002
This paper deals with analysis, by methods of extended thermodynamics, of the thermomechanical effects which arise in the flow of a weakly viscous fluid in a porous medium. Under the hypothesis that the fluid fills all the interstices among the powder and that the size of the powder grains and of the interstices is much lower than a suitable characteristic length, linearized field equations are written, which include, in a natural way, terms which take into account the Dufour, Soret, and virtual mass effects. As a limiting case when the evolution time of the heat flux goes to infinite and no entropy flux is carried, the flow of liquid helium II in a porous medium is obtained.
Salt-induced microheterogeneities in binary liquid mixtures
2017
The salt-induced microheterogeneity (MH) formation in binary liquid mixtures is studied by small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) and liquid state theory. Previous experiments have shown that this phenomenon occurs for antagonistic salts, whose cations and anions prefer different components of the solvent mixture. However, so far the precise mechanism leading to the characteristic length scale of MHs has remained unclear. Here, it is shown that MHs can be generated by the competition of short-ranged interactions and long-ranged monopole-dipole interactions. The experimental SAXS patterns can be reproduced quantitatively by fitting to the derived correlation functions without assuming any speci…
Computer simulation of bottle-brush polymers with flexible backbone: good solvent versus theta solvent conditions.
2011
By Molecular Dynamics simulation of a coarse-grained bead-spring type model for a cylindrical molecular brush with a backbone chain of $N_b$ effective monomers to which with grafting density $\sigma$ side chains with $N$ effective monomers are tethered, several characteristic length scales are studied for variable solvent quality. Side chain lengths are in the range $5 \le N \le 40$, backbone chain lengths are in the range $50 \le N_b \le 200$, and we perform a comparison to results for the bond fluctuation model on the simple cubic lattice (for which much longer chains are accessible, $N_b \le 1027$, and which corresponds to an athermal, very good, solvent). We obtain linear dimensions of …
Spinodal decomposition of polymer solutions: molecular dynamics simulations of the two-dimensional case.
2012
As a generic model system for phase separation in polymer solutions, a coarse-grained model for hexadecane/carbon dioxide mixtures has been studied in two-dimensional geometry. Both the phase diagram in equilibrium (obtained from a finite size scaling analysis of Monte Carlo data) and the kinetics of state changes caused by pressure jumps (studied by large scale molecular dynamics simulations) are presented. The results are compared to previous work where the same model was studied in three-dimensional geometry and under confinement in slit geometry. For deep quenches the characteristic length scale ℓ(t) of the formed domains grows with time t according to a power law close to [Formula: see…
Surface-directed spinodal decomposition in a thin-film geometry: A computer simulation
1994
The phase separation kinetics of a two-dimensional binary mixture at critical composition confined between (one-dimensional) straight walls which preferentially attract one component of the mixture is studied for a wide range of distancesD between the walls. Following earlier related work on semiinfinite systems, two choices of surface forces at the walls are considered, one corresponding to an incompletely wet state of the walls, the other to a completely wet state (forD→∞). The nonlinear Cahn-Hilliard-type equation, supplemented with appropriate boundary conditions which account for the presence of surfaces, is replaced by a discrete equivalent and integrated numerically. Starting from a …
Shear heating induced lithospheric-scale localization: Does it result in subduction?
2012
Abstract Even though it is a well-established fact that the Earth is currently in a plate-tectonics mode, the question on how to “break” lithospheric plates and initiate subduction remains a matter of debate. Here we focus on shear heating as a potential mechanism to cause lithospheric shear localization and subsequent subduction initiation in oceanic plates. It is shown that shear heating under some conditions (i) facilitates the formation of a lithospheric-scale shear zone and (ii) is capable of stabilizing a lithospheric-scale shear zone, thus creating the necessary condition for subduction initiation to occur. Furthermore, we demonstrate that not only the localization process is of impo…
Cooperativity Scaling and Free Volume in Plasticized Polylactide
2019
The authors would like to thank the region Haute Normandie for their financial support and the acquisition of the Broadband Dielectric Spectrometer. R.G. acknowledges U.S. National Science Foundation (Grant no. DMR-1725188) for the acquisition of PAL spectrometer. The experimental evidence of the increase of activation energy associated with the super Arrhenius behavior governing amorphous polylactide by free volume variations has been obtained through a combination of calorimetric, dielectric, and positron annihilation lifetime measurements. The amount of free volume in polylactide was controlled by the amount of acetyltributylcitrate plasticizer in the composition. Plasticization is shown…
1994
Modeling glass materials
2005
Abstract Structural and dynamic properties of silicate melts and glasses (SiO 2 and its mixtures with Na 2 O and Al 2 O 3 ) are derived from Molecular Dynamics simulations and compared to pertinent experimental data. It is shown that these mixtures exhibit additional intermediate order as compared to pure silica, where the characteristic length scales stem from the tetrahedral network structure. While sodium ions show much faster diffusion through percolating channels than the silicon and oxygen ions forming the surrounding network, aluminium ions are incorporated into the network (leading to tricluster formation) and do not show such an enhanced mobility.