A Novel Application for Molecular Dynamics - The Simulation of Powder Flow

Introduction The purpose of this short note is to bring to the attention of the atomistic simulation community an interesting application of molecular dynamics, MD, that has been attracting increasing interest in the chemical engineering and applied physics communities over recent years. Molecular Dynamics is being applied to investigate transport of dry granular materials. The particles modelled are typically ¸ mm, across so they are considerably larger than the particles normally dealt with in atomistic simulation, in fact, i :e:; ¸ 10 7 larger in length scale! Powders are formed, stored and transported in a wide variety of industrial processes as an intermediate stage or as the final product itself. A wide range of materials is encompassed, for example, agricultural grains (e:g :; wheat and barley seeds), foodstuffs (e:g :