1,918 research outputs found
Dilatancy, Jamming, and the Physics of Granulation
Granulation is a process whereby a dense colloidal suspension is converted
into pasty granules (surrounded by air) by application of shear. Central to the
stability of the granules is the capillary force arising from the interfacial
tension between solvent and air. This force appears capable of maintaining a
solvent granule in a jammed solid state, under conditions where the same amount
of solvent and colloid could also exist as a flowable droplet. We argue that in
the early stages of granulation the physics of dilatancy, which requires that a
powder expand on shearing, is converted by capillary forces into the physics of
arrest. Using a schematic model of colloidal arrest under stress, we speculate
upon various jamming and granulation scenarios. Some preliminary experimental
results on aspects of granulation in hard-sphere colloidal suspensions are also
reported.Comment: Original article intended for J Phys Cond Mat special issue on
Granular Materials (M Nicodemi, Ed.
Enforcement of Statutory Rights of Employees of Government Contractors
The United States government disburses a vast amount of money each year to meet its contractual obligations. As the size of the federal government and the dimension of the services it provides continue to expand, the importance of federal contract spending in our national economy is likely to reach staggering proportions.\u27 Presently there are a great many manufacturing, construction, and brokerage concerns engaged in work on a large number of federal government contracts. The purpose of this note is to discuss in general the major federal statutes which govern rights of employees of those performing government contracts and to discuss in detail the penalties which may be applicable to the contractor-employer in violation of one of these statutes
Glass transitions and shear thickening suspension rheology
We introduce a class of simple models for shear thickening and/ or `jamming'
in colloidal suspensions. These are based on schematic mode coupling theory
(MCT) of the glass transition, having a memory term that depends on a density
variable, and on both the shear stress and the shear rate. (Tensorial aspects
of the rheology, such as normal stresses, are ignored for simplicity.) We
calculate steady-state flow curves and correlation functions. Depending on
model parameters, we find a range of rheological behaviours, including
`S-shaped' flow curves, indicating discontinuous shear thickening, and
stress-induced transitions from a fluid to a nonergodic (jammed) state, showing
zero flow rate in an interval of applied stress. The shear thickening and
jamming scenarios that we explore appear broadly consistent with experiments on
dense colloids close to the glass transition, despite the fact that we ignore
hydrodynamic interactions. In particular, the jamming transition we propose is
conceptually quite different from various hydrodynamic mechanisms of shear
thickening in the literature, although the latter might remain pertinent at
lower colloid densities. Our jammed state is a stress-induced glass, but its
nonergodicity transitions have an analytical structure distinct from that of
the conventional MCT glass transition.Comment: 33 pages; 19 figure
Role of Metastable States in Phase Ordering Dynamics
We show that the rate of separation of two phases of different densities
(e.g. gas and solid) can be radically altered by the presence of a metastable
intermediate phase (e.g. liquid). Within a Cahn-Hilliard theory we study the
growth in one dimension of a solid droplet from a supersaturated gas. A moving
interface between solid and gas phases (say) can, for sufficient (transient)
supersaturation, unbind into two interfaces separated by a slab of metastable
liquid phase. We investigate the criteria for unbinding, and show that it may
strongly impede the growth of the solid phase.Comment: 4 pages, Latex, Revtex, epsf. Updated two reference
Flavor decomposition of the elastic nucleon electromagnetic form factors
The u- and d-quark contributions to the elastic nucleon electromagnetic form
factors have been determined using experimental data on GEn, GMn, GpE, and GpM.
Such a flavor separation of the form factors became possible up to 3.4 GeV2
with recent data on GEn from Hall A at JLab. At a negative four-momentum
transfer squared Q2 above 1 GeV2, for both the u- and d-quark components, the
ratio of the Pauli form factor to the Dirac form factor, F2/F1, was found to be
almost constant, and for each of F2 and F1 individually, the d-quark portions
of both form factors drop continuously with increasing Q2.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Phase Separation in Binary Fluid Mixtures with Continuously Ramped Temperature
We consider the demixing of a binary fluid mixture, under gravity, which is
steadily driven into a two phase region by slowly ramping the temperature. We
assume, as a first approximation, that the system remains spatially isothermal,
and examine the interplay of two competing nonlinearities. One of these arises
because the supersaturation is greatest far from the meniscus, creating
inversion of the density which can lead to fluid motion; although isothermal,
this is somewhat like the Benard problem (a single-phase fluid heated from
below). The other is the intrinsic diffusive instability which results either
in nucleation or in spinodal decomposition at large supersaturations.
Experimental results on a simple binary mixture show interesting oscillations
in heat capacity and optical properties for a wide range of ramp parameters. We
argue that these oscillations arise under conditions where both nonlinearities
are important
Colloidal Jamming at Interfaces: a Route to Fluid-bicontinuous Gels
Colloidal particles or nanoparticles, with equal affinity for two fluids, are
known to adsorb irreversibly to the fluid-fluid interface. We present
large-scale computer simulations of the demixing of a binary solvent containing
such particles. The newly formed interface sequesters the colloidal particles;
as the interface coarsens, the particles are forced into close contact by
interfacial tension. Coarsening is dramatically curtailed, and the jammed
colloidal layer seemingly enters a glassy state, creating a multiply connected,
solid-like film in three dimensions. The resulting gel contains percolating
domains of both fluids, with possible uses as, for example, a microreaction
medium
Inertial effects in three dimensional spinodal decomposition of a symmetric binary fluid mixture: A lattice Boltzmann study
The late-stage demixing following spinodal decomposition of a
three-dimensional symmetric binary fluid mixture is studied numerically, using
a thermodynamicaly consistent lattice Boltzmann method. We combine results from
simulations with different numerical parameters to obtain an unprecendented
range of length and time scales when expressed in reduced physical units. Using
eight large (256^3) runs, the resulting composite graph of reduced domain size
l against reduced time t covers 1 < l < 10^5, 10 < t < 10^8. Our data is
consistent with the dynamical scaling hypothesis, that l(t) is a universal
scaling curve. We give the first detailed statistical analysis of fluid motion,
rather than just domain evolution, in simulations of this kind, and introduce
scaling plots for several quantities derived from the fluid velocity and
velocity gradient fields.Comment: 49 pages, latex, J. Fluid Mech. style, 48 embedded eps figs plus 6
colour jpegs for Fig 10 on p.2
Dynamical Monte Carlo Study of Equilibrium Polymers : Static Properties
We report results of extensive Dynamical Monte Carlo investigations on
self-assembled Equilibrium Polymers (EP) without loops in good solvent. (This
is thought to provide a good model of giant surfactant micelles.) Using a novel
algorithm we are able to describe efficiently both static and dynamic
properties of systems in which the mean chain length \Lav is effectively
comparable to that of laboratory experiments (up to 5000 monomers, even at high
polymer densities). We sample up to scission energies of over
nearly three orders of magnitude in monomer density , and present a
detailed crossover study ranging from swollen EP chains in the dilute regime up
to dense molten systems. Confirming recent theoretical predictions, the
mean-chain length is found to scale as \Lav \propto \phi^\alpha \exp(\delta
E) where the exponents approach
and in the
dilute and semidilute limits respectively. The chain length distribution is
qualitatively well described in the dilute limit by the Schulz-Zimm
distribution \cN(s)\approx s^{\gamma-1} \exp(-s) where the scaling variable
is s=\gamma L/\Lav. The very large size of these simulations allows also an
accurate determination of the self-avoiding walk susceptibility exponent
. ....... Finite-size effects are discussed in
detail.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures, LATE
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