The bouncing threshold in silica nanograin collisions

Molecular dynamics simulations of head-on low-velocity collisions between particles

The particle contact model is important for powder simulations. Although several contact models have been proposed, their validity has not yet been well established. Therefore, we perform molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to clarify the particle interaction. We simulate head-on collisions of two particles with impact velocities less than a few percent of the sound velocity to investigate the dependence of the interparticle force and the coefficient of restitution on the impact velocity and particle radius. In this study, we treat particles with a radius of 10-100 nm and perform simulations with up to 0.2 billion atoms. We find that the interparticle force exhibits hysteresis between the loading and unloading phases. Larger impact velocities result in strong hysteresis and plastic deformation. For all impact velocities and particle radii, the coefficient of restitution is smaller than that given by the Johnson-Kendall-Robert theory, which is a contact model that gives the force between elastic spherical particles. A contact model of inelastic particles cannot reproduce our MD simulations. In particular, the coefficient of restitution is significantly reduced when the impact velocity exceeds a certain value. This significant energy dissipation cannot be explained even by the contact models including plastic deformation. We also find that the coefficient of restitution increases with increasing particle radius. We also find that the previous contact models including plastic deformation cannot explain the strong energy dissipation obtained in our MD simulations, although they agree with the MD results for very low impact velocities. Accordingly, we have constructed a new dissipative contact model in which the dissipative force increases with the stress generated by collisions. The new stress-dependent model successfully reproduces our MD results over a wider range of impact velocities than the conventional models do. In addition, we proposed another, simpler, dissipative contact model that can also reproduce the MD results.

An atomistic study of sticking, bouncing, and aggregate destruction in collisions of grains with small aggregates

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study central collisions between spherical grains and between grains and small grain aggregates (up to 5 grains). For a model material (Lennard-Jones), grain-grain collisions are sticking when the relative velocity v is smaller than the so-called bouncing velocity and bouncing for higher velocities. We find a similar behavior for grain-aggregate collisions. The value of the bouncing velocity depends only negligibly on the aggregate size. However, it is by 35% larger than the separation velocity needed to break a contact; this is explained by energy dissipation processes during the collision. The separation velocity follows the predictions of the macroscopic Johnson-Kendall-Roberts theory of contacts. At even higher collision velocities, the aggregate is destroyed, first by the loss of a monomer grain and then by total disruption. In contrast to theoretical considerations, we do not find a proportionality of the collision energy needed for destruction and the number of bonds to be broken. Our study thus sheds novel light on the foundations of granular mechanics, namely the energy needed to separate two grains, the difference between grain-grain and grain-aggregate collisions, and the energy needed for aggregate destruction.

The effect of collisions on the chemomechanics of ice-covered silica slabs: a molecular dynamics study

Using molecular dynamics simulation and the REAX potential, we study the collision of two planar silica surfaces covered by water ice. Without the ice cover, the two surfaces stick at all velocities investigated (160-1800 m s-1), due to the formation of chemical bonds between the colliding surfaces. A narrow ice cover - here of thickness 2 nm - prevents the sticking above a characteristic velocity, the bouncing velocity νb. During the collision, reactions occur at the silica-water interface; in particular, water molecules are dissociated and silanols are formed at the surface of the silica slabs. Passivation of the silica surface by H atoms is of little consequence to the magnitude of vb but reduces the number of surface reactions occurring.

Deformation, damage, and reaction characteristics during the collision between Ni and Al nanoparticles

The exothermic reaction during the collision between nanoparticles is of importance for the engineering applications of energetic powder materials. This work investigates collision-induced nanoparticle deformation, damage and reaction characteristics in a reactive Ni/Al system via molecular dynamics simulations. The morphological changes and reaction process are explored thoroughly for a wide range of impact velocities v and initial particle radius R. For lower impact velocities (1 km s-1 ≤ v ≤ 1.5 km s-1), the fully melted Al gradually clad the plastic deformed Ni nanoparticles to form an Al-shell/Ni-core structure, and the morphology ultimately develop into a nearly spherical shape possessing minimal surface energy. During this period, the self-sustaining reaction driven by the diffusion of Ni atoms into molten Al leads to slow melting of Ni nanoparticles, and the reaction and melting rates increase with the decrease of the particle radius. There exists one critical radius (R = 10 nm) beyond which the reaction is severely blocked due to the occurrence of fracture behavior at v = 1.5 km s-1. For intermediate velocities (2 km s-1 ≤ v < 3 km s-1), collision-induced debris clouds are observed, which satisfies the power-law distribution in the size of debris and results in an obvious reduction of the final reaction degree. Interestingly, we found that the reactive component in generated debris is lower for the larger-radius nanoparticle, which is also responsible for the lower final reaction degree and thermal kinetic energy. For higher velocities (v ≥ 3 km s-1), the occurrence of spallation damage reduces the contact area due to the formed micro-voids within Al and Ni nanoparticles and consequently the final reaction degree further.

Shock-Induced Microstructural Evolution, Phase Transformation, Sintering of Al-Ni Dissimilar Nanoparticles: A Molecular Dynamics Study

Molecular dynamic simulations have been performed to explore contact behavior, microstructure evolution and sintering mechanism of Al-Ni dissimilar nanoparticles under high-velocity impact. We confirmed that the simulated contact stress, contact radius, and contact force under low-velocity impact are in good agreement with the predicted results of the Hertz model. However, with increasing the impact velocity, the simulated results gradually deviate from the predicted results of the Hertz model due to the elastic-plastic transition and atomic discrete structure. The normalized contact radius versus strain exhibits a weak dependence on nanosphere diameter. Below a critical velocity, there are very few HCP atoms in the nanospheres after thermal equilibrium. There are two different sintering mechanisms: under low-velocity impact, the sintering process relies mainly on the dislocation slip of Al nanospheres, while the dislocation slip of Ni nanospheres and the atomic diffusion of Al nanospheres predominate under high-velocity impact.

Collisions between CO, CO[Formula: see text], H[Formula: see text]O and Ar ice nanoparticles compared by molecular dynamics simulation

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study collisions between amorphous ice nanoparticles consisting of CO, CO[Formula: see text], Ar and H[Formula: see text]O. The collisions are always sticking for the nanoparticle size (radius of 20 nm) considered. At higher collision velocities, the merged clusters show strong plastic deformation and material mixing in the collision zone. Collision-induced heating influences the collision outcome. Partial melting of the merged cluster in the collision zone contributes to energy dissipation and deformation. Considerable differences exist-even at comparable collision conditions-between the ices studied here. The number of ejecta emitted during the collision follows the trend in triple-point temperatures and increases exponentially with the NP temperature.

Bouncing and spinning of amorphous Lennard-Jones nanoparticles under oblique collisions

Collisions of Lennard-Jones nanoparticles (NPs) may be used to study the generic collision behavior of NPs. We study the collision dynamics of amorphous NPs for oblique collisions using molecular dynamics simulation as a function of collision velocity and impact parameter. In order to allow for NP bouncing, the attraction between atoms originating from differing NPs is reduced. For near-central collisions, a finite region of velocities – a ‘bouncing window’ – exists where the 2 NPs bounce from each other. At smaller velocities, energy dissipation and – at larger velocities – also NP deformation do not allow the NPs to surpass the attractive forces such that they stick to each other. Oblique collisions of non-rotating NPs convert angular momentum into NP spin. For low velocities, the NP spin is well described by assuming the NPs to come momentarily to a complete stop at the contact point (‘grip’), such that orbital and spin angular momentum share the pre-collision angular momentum in a ratio of 5:2. The normal coefficient of restitution increases with impact parameter for small velocities, but changes sign for larger velocities where the 2 NPs do not repel but their motion direction persists. The tangential coefficient of restitution is fixed in the ‘grip’ regime to a value of 5/7, but increases towards 1 for high-velocity collisions at not too small impact parameters, where the 2 NPs slide along each other.

Molecular dynamics of rolling and twisting motion of amorphous nanoparticles

Granular mechanics codes use macroscopic laws to describe the damping of rolling and twisting motion in granular ensembles. We employ molecular dynamics simulation of amorphous Lennard–Jones grains to explore the applicability of these laws for nm-sized particles. We find the adhesive force to be linear in the intergrain attraction, as in the macroscopic theory. However, the damping torque of rolling motion is strongly superlinear in the intergrain attraction. This is caused by the strong increase of the ‘lever arm’ responsible for the damping torque—characterizing the asymmetry of the adhesive neck during rolling motion—with the surface energy of the grains. Also the damping torque of twisting motion follows the macroscopic theory based on sliding friction, which predicts the torque to increase whit the cube of the contact radius; here the dynamic increase of the contact radius with angular velocity is taken into account.

Bouncing of Hydroxylated Silica Nanoparticles: an Atomistic Study Based on REAX Potentials

Clean silica surfaces have a high surface energy. In consequence, colliding silica nanoparticles will stick rather than bounce over a wide range of collision velocities. Often, however, silica surfaces are passivated by adsorbates, in particular water, which considerably reduce the surface energy. We study the effect of surface hydroxylation on silica nanoparticle collisions by atomistic simulation, using the REAX potential that allows for bond breaking and formation. We find that the bouncing velocity is reduced by more than an order of magnitude compared to clean nanoparticle collisions.

Bouncing window for colliding nanoparticles: Role of dislocation generation

Available macroscopic theories-such as the Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (JKR) model-predict spherical particles to stick to each other at small collision velocities v; above the bouncing velocity, v_{b}, they bounce. We study the details of the bouncing threshold using molecular dynamics simulation for crystalline nanoparticles where atoms interact via the Lennard-Jones potential. We show that the bouncing velocity strongly depends on the nanoparticle orientation during collision; for some orientations, nanoparticles stick at all velocities. The dependence of bouncing on orientation is caused by energy dissipation during dislocation activity. The bouncing velocity decreases with increasing nanoparticle radius in reasonable agreement with JKR theory. For orientations for which bouncing exists, nanoparticles stick again at a higher velocity, the fusion velocity, v_{f}, such that bouncing only occurs in a finite range of velocities-the bouncing window. The fusion velocity is rather independent of the nanoparticle radius.

Influence of Elastic Stiffness and Surface Adhesion on Bouncing of Nanoparticles

Granular collisions are characterized by a threshold velocity, separating the low-velocity regime of grain sticking from the high-velocity regime of grain bouncing: the bouncing velocity, v _b . This parameter is particularly important for nanograins and has applications for instance in astrophysics where it enters the description of collisional dust aggregation. Analytic estimates are based on the macroscopic Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (JKR) theory, which predicts the dependence of v _b on the radius, elastic stiffness, and surface adhesion of grains. Here, we perform atomistic simulations with model potentials that allow us to test these dependencies for nanograin collisions. Our results not only show that JKR describes the dependence on materials parameters qualitatively well, but also point at considerable quantitative deviations. These are the most pronounced for small adhesion, where elastic stiffness does not influence the value of the bouncing velocity.