A Novel Application for Molecular Dynamics The Simulation of Powder Flow.pdfVIP

A Novel Application for Molecular Dynamics The Simulation of Powder Flow DM Heyes Department of Chemistry University of Surrey Guildford GU XH UK and PA Langston and U Tuz un Department of Chemical Pro cess Engineering University of Surrey Guildford GU XH UK Intro duction The purp ose of this short note is to bring to the attention of the atomistic simulation community an interesting application of molecular dynamics MD that has b een attracting increasing interest in the chemical engineering and applied physics communities over recent years Molecular Dynamics is b eing applied to investigate transp ort of dry granular materials The particles mo delled are typically mm across so they are considerably larger than the particles 7 normally dealt with in atomistic simulation in fact i e larger in length scale Powders are formed stored and transp orted in a wide variety of industrial pro cesses as an intermediate stage or as the nal pro duct itself A wide range of materials is encompassed for example agri cultural grains e g wheat and barley seeds fo o dstus e g sugar solid fuels e g coal and pharmaceutical pro ducts The applications are wide in scop e and enormous in terms of monetary value Small improvements in the ecient handling of these materials can reap signicant nancial rewards These materials are often heap ed up in piles e g agricultural pro duce in the farmyard and sand in a builders yard An alternative metho d of storage is to