65 research outputs found
Advanced oxygen-hydrocarbon rocket engine study
Preliminary identification and evaluation of promising LO2/Hydrocarbon rocket engine cycles were used to produce a consistent and reliable data base for vehicle optimization and design studies. cycles G and C were chosen for design analysis. Preliminary design analysis of the heat transfer subsystem was performed to establish major technology requirements
Numerical Study of the Stress Response of Two-Dimensional Dense Granular Packings
We investigate the Green function of two-dimensional dense random packings of
grains in order to discriminate between the different theories of stress
transmission in granular materials. Our computer simulations allow for a
detailed quantitative investigation of the dynamics which is difficult to
obtain experimentally. We show that both hyperbolic and parabolic models of
stress transmission fail to predict the correct stress distribution in the
studied region of the parameters space. We demonstrate that the compressional
and shear components of the stress compare very well with the predictions of
isotropic elasticity for a wide range of pressures and porosities and for both
frictional and frictionless packings. However, the states used in this study do
not include the critical isostatic point for frictional particles, so that our
results do not preclude the fact that corrections to elasticity may appear at
the critical point of jamming, or for other sample preparation protocols, as
discussed in the main text. We show that the agreement holds in the bulk of the
packings as well as at the boundaries and we validate the linear dependence of
the stress profile width with depth.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Stress Transmission through Three-Dimensional Ordered Granular Arrays
We measure the local contact forces at both the top and bottom boundaries of
three-dimensional face-centered-cubic and hexagonal-close-packed granular
crystals in response to an external force applied to a small area at the top
surface. Depending on the crystal structure, we find markedly different results
which can be understood in terms of force balance considerations in the
specific geometry of the crystal. Small amounts of disorder are found to create
additional structure at both the top and bottom surfaces.Comment: 9 pages including 9 figures (many in color) submitted to PR
Force distributions in 3D granular assemblies: Effects of packing order and inter-particle friction
We present a systematic investigation of the distribution of normal forces at
the boundaries of static packings of spheres. A new method for the efficient
construction of large hexagonal-close-packed crystals is introduced and used to
study the effect of spatial ordering on the distribution of forces. Under
uniaxial compression we find that the form for the probability distribution of
normal forces between particles does not depend strongly on crystallinity or
inter-particle friction. In all cases the distribution decays exponentially at
large forces and shows a plateau or possibly a small peak near the average
force but does not tend to zero at small forces.Comment: 9 pages including 8 figure
Response of a Hexagonal Granular Packing under a Localized External Force: Exact Results
We study the response of a two-dimensional hexagonal packing of massless,
rigid, frictionless spherical grains due to a vertically downward point force
on a single grain at the top layer. We use a statistical approach, where each
mechanically stable configuration of contact forces is equally likely. We show
that this problem is equivalent to a correlated -model. We find that the
response is double-peaked, where the two peaks, sharp and single-grain diameter
wide, lie on the two downward lattice directions emanating from the point of
the application of the external force. For systems of finite size, the
magnitude of these peaks decreases towards the bottom of the packing, while
progressively a broader, central maximum appears between the peaks. The
response behaviour displays a remarkable scaling behaviour with system size
: while the response in the bulk of the packing scales as , on
the boundary it is independent of , so that in the thermodynamic limit only
the peaks on the lattice directions persist. This qualitative behaviour is
extremely robust, as demonstrated by our simulation results with different
boundary conditions. We have obtained expressions of the response and higher
correlations for any system size in terms of integers corresponding to an
underlying discrete structure.Comment: Accepted for publication in JStat; 33 pages, 10 figures; Section 2.2
reorganized and rewritten; Details about the simulation procedure added in
Sec.3.1. ; A new section, summarizing the final results and the calculation
procedure adde
Sensitivity of the stress response function to packing preparation
A granular assembly composed of a collection of identical grains may pack
under different microscopic configurations with microscopic features that are
sensitive to the preparation history. A given configuration may also change in
response to external actions such as compression, shearing etc. We show using a
mechanical response function method developed experimentally and numerically,
that the macroscopic stress profiles are strongly dependent on these
preparation procedures. These results were obtained for both two and three
dimensions. The method reveals that, under a given preparation history, the
macroscopic symmetries of the granular material is affected and in most cases
significant departures from isotropy should be observed. This suggests a new
path toward a non-intrusive test of granular material constitutive properties.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, some numerical data corrected, to appear in J.
Phys. Cond. Mat. special issue on Granular Materials (M. Nicodemi Editor
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