Effect of particle size distribution on the polarity of triboelectric charging in granular insulator systems

Triboelectric charging occurs in granular insulating systems even when all particles are composed of identical material. A simple model is used here to address triboelectric charging in such systems. The basis of the model is the existence of electrons trapped in high-energy states, which can be released during collisions with another particle and transferred to the other particle. This model shows that triboelectric charging in insulator systems composed of particles of identical material can be attributed to a distribution of particle sizes, such that smaller particles tend to charge negatively and larger particles tend to charge positively. This polarity of charging has been observed in field studies of sand storms, dust devils and volcanic plumes, and most laboratory experiments on triboelectric charging in granular systems.     

Discrete element modeling of triboelectric charging of insulating materials in vibrated granular beds

The triboelectric charging of granular insulating materials is very difficult to predict because of the complex physical mechanism involved in this process. The aim of this paper is to describe in detail the implementation of a numerical model of the tribocharging process taking place in vertically-vibrated beds of granular plastics. The charge exchanged in granule-to-granule and granule-to-wall collisions is computed by taking into account some electrical properties of the respective materials, their area of contact and the effect of the electric field generated by a system of high-voltage electrodes and by the charges of the granules themselves. The electrical model is coupled with the Discrete Element Method (DEM) which undertakes the whole granular dynamics and allows to compute accurately the contact surface of two colliding particles which is involved in the triboelectric charging model.Beside the numerical simulations an experiment has been conducted with mixtures of mm-size polyamide and polycarbonate granules in a laboratory vibrated bed to validate the model. The numerical results have been found to be in good agreement with the experimental ones.     

Particle dynamics in sheared granular matter

The particle dynamics and shear forces of granular matter in a Couette geometry are determined experimentally. The normalized tangential velocity V(y) declines strongly with distance y from the moving wall, independent of the shear rate and of the shear dynamics. Local rms velocity fluctuations deltaV(y) scale with the local velocity gradient to the power 0.4+/-0.05. These results agree with a locally Newtonian, continuum model, where the granular medium is assumed to behave as a liquid with a local temperature [deltaV(y)](2) and density dependent viscosity.     

Nonequilibrium accumulation of surface species and triboelectric charging in single component particulate systems

Triboelectric charging occurs in granular systems composed of chemically identical particles even though there is no apparent driving force for charge transfer. We show that such charging can result from nonequilibrium dynamics in which collision-induced electron transfer generates electron accumulation on a particle-size-dependent subset of the system. This idea rationalizes experimental results that suggest that smaller particles charge negatively while the large ones charge positively. This effect occurs generally when there are high energy electrons on a surface that cannot equilibrate to lower energy states on the same surface, but can transfer to lower energy states on other particles during collisions.     

Particle pinch in gyrokinetic simulations of closed field-line systems

Gyrokinetic simulations of small-scale turbulent transport in a closed magnetic field-line plasma geometry are presented. The simulations are potentially applicable to dipolar systems such as the levitated dipole experiment (LDX) [J. Kesner, Plasma Phys. Rep. 23, 742 (1997).] and planetary magnetospheres, as well as simpler systems such as the Z pinch. We report here for the first time the existence of a robust particle (and weaker temperature) pinch regime, in which the particles are transported up the density gradient. The particle pinch is driven by non-MHD entropy-mode turbulence at k(⊥) ρ(i) ～ 1 and particle pinch appears at larger η ≡ L(n)/L(T) ? 0.7, consistent with quasilinear theory. Our results suggest that entropy-mode transport will drive the LDX plasma profiles toward a state with η ～ 0.7 and pressure gradients that are near marginal ideal MHD interchange-mode stability.     

Molecular dynamics simulations of one-dimensional Lennard-Jones systems

One-dimensional Lennard-Jones systems are investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. The full Lennard-Jones potential is compared to the repulsive Lennard-Jones potential. It is found that the pair correlation function and the normalized velocity autocorrelation function agree at high densities and high temperature. However, the diffusion coefficient indicates that the attractive potential introduces additional correlations into particle dynamics which are not reflected in the statics. These results are in agreement with three-dimensional studies.     

Effects of material strain on triboelectric charging: Influence of material properties

We address electrostatic charging of unstrained and strained latex rubber sheets contacted with a series of materials: polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), polyurethane (PU) and stainless steel (SS). For PTFE, strain causes a reversal in the direction of charge transfer. For PU, the direction of charge transfer is reversed after repeated contacts due to material transfer, and strain increases the number of contacts needed for this reversal. For SS, strain reduces the frequency of electrical discharges occurring. These effects may be explained by strain either changing material properties relevant to triboelectric charging, or changing the nature of contact between the surfaces.     

Analysis on surface charging of insulator prior to flashover in vacuum

Prior to the flashover across an insulator in vacuum, the insulator surface is usually charged. It is of great importance to investigate the charging phenomena for better understanding the flashover characteristics. It is considered that there are two kinds of mechanisms closely related to the surface charging of insulator i.e., the secondary electron emission occurred over an insulator, and while employing a perfect electrode contact ahead of electron emission into vacuum, the charge injection and accumulation occurred inside the surface layer of an insulator. Based on the rigorous analysis of the kinetic processes of both primary and secondary electrons, the related surface charges were theoretically deduced. Involving the detrapping of charges trapped and the recombination of charges injected, the charging process due to charge injection and accumulation was analyzed. Some formulas were given to express the density of surface charges.     

An adaptive hierarchical domain decomposition method for parallel contact dynamics simulations of granular materials

A fully parallel version of the contact dynamics (CD) method is presented in this paper. For large enough systems, 100% efficiency has been demonstrated for up to 256 processors using a hierarchical domain decomposition with dynamic load balancing. The iterative scheme to calculate the contact forces is left domain-wise sequential, with data exchange after each iteration step, which ensures its stability. The number of additional iterations required for convergence by the partially parallel updates at the domain boundaries becomes negligible with increasing number of particles, which allows for an effective parallelization. Compared to the sequential implementation, we found no influence of the parallelization on simulation results.     

Molecular dynamics simulations of displacement cascades in Fe-10%Cr systems

Molecular dynamics simulations of the displacement cascades in Fe-10%Cr systems are used to simulate the primary knocked-on atom events of the irradiation damage at temperatures 300,600,and 750 K with primary knockedon atom energies between 1 and 15 keV.The results indicate that the vacancies produced by the cascade are all in the central region of the displacement cascade.During the cascade,all recoil Fe and Cr atoms combine with each other to form Fe-Cr or Fe-Fe interstitial dumbbells as well as interstitial clusters.The number and the size of interstitial clusters increase with the energy of the primary knocked-on atom and the temperature.A few large clusters consist of a large number of Fe interstitials with a few Cr atoms,the rest are Fe-Cr clusters with small and medium sizes.The interstitial dumbbells of Fe-Fe and Fe-Cr are in the 111 and 110 series directions,respectively.     

Molecular dynamics simulations of displacement cascades in Feben 10%Cr systems

Molecular dynamics simulations of the displacement cascades in Fe-10%Cr systems are used to simulate the primary knocked-on atom events of the irradiation damage at temperatures 300, 600, and 750 K with primary knocked-on atom energies between 1 and 15 keV. The results indicate that the vacancies produced by the cascade are all in the central region of the displacement cascade. During the cascade, all recoil Fe and Cr atoms combine with each other to form Fe-Cr or Fe-Fe interstitial dumbbells as well as interstitial clusters. The number and the size of interstitial clusters increase with the energy of the primary knocked-on atom and the temperature. A few large clusters consist of a large number of Fe interstitials with a few Cr atoms, the rest are Fe-Cr clusters with small and medium sizes. The interstitial dumbbells of Fe-Fe and Fe-Cr are in the lan111ran and lan110ran series directions, respectively.     

A reproducible test to characterise the triboelectric charging of powders during their pneumatic transport

Although several investigations had been carried out to explore the triboelectrification of powders, only few data are available on the experimental procedures and set-ups required to obtain reliable data. The present study deals with the development of a pneumatic test to characterise the tribocharging of fine powders. An experimental device was set up allowing on-line monitoring of the charge of both particles and transport pipes. Experiments were carried out using two types of powder (fine sugar and PVC) coupled with two types of pipe materials (Teflon and nylon). Results showed the extreme importance of the control of the relative humidity, the initial charge of particles and the charge dissipation of the walls to obtain pertinent data. Furthermore, the results showed that solids loadings higher than 1 (kg of solids/kg of air) are not proper to achieve reliable measurements. However, at very dilute solids loading (～0.001) the time evolutions of the electrostatic charge and the mass of the powder follow similar trends so that the tribocharging becomes independent of the solids mass flowrate. This allows accurate assessment of the tribocharging of cohesive powders for which a regular flow cannot be guaranteed.     

Particle simulations of space weather

We review the application of particle simulation techniques to the full kinetic study of space weather events. We focus especially on the methods designed to overcome the difficulties created by the tremendous range of time and space scales present in the physical systems. We review the aspects of the derivation of the particle in cell (PIC) method relevant to the discussion. We consider first the explicit formulation highlighting its severe limitations due to the presence of stability constraints. Next we introduce implicit methods designed to remove such constraints. We describe both fully implicit methods based on the use of non-linear iteration solvers and semi-implicit methods based on the linearization of the coupling and on simpler linear solvers. We focus the discussion on the implicit moment method but remark its differences from the direct implicit method. The application of adaptive methods within PIC is discussed. Finally practical considerations about the implementation of the implicit PIC method on massively parallel computers to conduct studies of space weather events are given.     

Coarsening in granular systems

We review a few representative examples of granular experiments or models where phase separation, accompanied by domain coarsening, is a relevant phenomenon. We first elucidate the intrinsic non-equilibrium, or athermal, nature of granular media. Thereafter, dilute systems, the so-called “granular gases”, are discussed: idealized kinetic models, such as the gas of inelastic hard spheres in the cooling regime, are the optimal playground to study the slow growth of correlated structures, e.g., shear patterns, vortices, and clusters. In fluidized experiments, liquid–gas or solid–gas separations have been observed. In the case of monolayers of particles, phase coexistence and coarsening appear in several different setups, with mechanical or electrostatic energy input. Phenomenological models describe, even quantitatively, several experimental measures, both for the coarsening dynamics and for the dynamic transition between different granular phases. The origin of the underlying bistability is in general related to negative compressibility from granular hydrodynamics computations, even if the understanding of the mechanism is far from complete. A relevant problem, with important industrial applications, is related to the demixing or segregation of mixtures, for instance in rotating tumblers or on horizontally vibrated plates. Finally, the problem of compaction of highly dense granular materials, which is relevant in many practical situations, is usually described in terms of coarsening dynamics: there, bubbles of misaligned grains evaporate, allowing the coalescence of optimally arranged islands and a progressive reduction of the total occupied volume.     

Effect of charging energy on transition temperature of granular superconductors

The effect of the zero-point fluctuations of the phase on the transition temperature T_c of a granular superconductor is calculated using a model which takes into account the short-range part of the charging energy. A self-consistent mean field theory predicts a critical value of the ratio of the Josephson coupling constant to the charging energy and the existence of two values of T_c, indicating the possibility of reentrance into normal state at the lower one.     

Topological Anderson insulator in two-dimensional non-Hermitian systems

We study the disorder-induced phase transition in two-dimensional non-Hermitian systems. First, the applicability of the noncommutative geometric method(NGM) in non-Hermitian systems is examined. By calculating the Chern number of two different systems(a square sample and a cylindrical one), the numerical results calculated by NGM are compared with the analytical one, and the phase boundary obtained by NGM is found to be in good agreement with the theoretical prediction. Then, we use NGM to investigate the evolution of the Chern number in non-Hermitian samples with the disorder effect. For the square sample, the stability of the non-Hermitian Chern insulator under disorder is confirmed. Significantly,we obtain a nontrivial topological phase induced by disorder. This phase is understood as the topological Anderson insulator in non-Hermitian systems. Finally, the disordered phase transition in the cylindrical sample is also investigated. The clean non-Hermitian cylindrical sample has three phases, and such samples show more phase transitions by varying the disorder strength:(1) the normal insulator phase to the gapless phase,(2) the normal insulator phase to the topological Anderson insulator phase, and(3) the gapless phase to the topological Anderson insulator phase.