Herein, an approach is proposed to analyze the tortuosity of porous electrodes using the radical Voronoi tessellation. For this purpose, a series of particle compacts geometrically similar to the actual porous electrode were generated using discrete element method; the radical Voronoi tessellation was constructed for each compact to characterize the structural properties; the tortuosity of compact porous structure was simulated by applying the Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm on radical Voronoi tessellation. Finally, the relationships were established between the tortuosity and the composition of the ternary particle mixture, and between the tortuosity and the radical Voronoi cell parameters. The following correlations between tortuosity values and radical Voronoi cell parameters were found: larger faces and longer edges of radical Voronoi cell leads to the increased fraction of larger values of tortuosity in the distribution, while smaller faces and shorter edges of radical Voronoi cell contribute to the increased fraction of smaller tortuosity values, being the tortuosity values more uniform with narrower distribution. Thus, the compacts with enhanced diffusion properties are expected to be obtained by packing particle mixtures with high volume fraction of small and medium particles. These results will help to design the well-packed particle compacts having improved diffusion properties for various applications including porous electrodes.
Fibers have been used to improve the mechanical properties of the asphalt paving mixture. It is known that the enhancement of powder compact mechanical properties is related to the compact packing microstructure. This study focuses on the evaluation of the packing microstructure of powder compacts produced from ternary mixtures of spherical particles and fibers. The discrete element method is employed to generate the compacts of particle mixtures of different compositions under gravity. The compact microstructure is quantitatively characterized by utilizing the developed image analysis technique to approximate the size distribution of voids among particles in X, Y and Z directions. As a result, the denser packing was obtained with a greater fraction of small spherical particles. The inclusion of fibers resulted in the high-density compact with uniform distribution of small size voids.
Materials in a powder form are frequently used in various industries for the manufacturing of commodity and high‐value products. To properly design the powder‐handling equipment and powder processes, it is essential to know the powder flow properties that depend, among other parameters, on the particle shape. The nonspherical particles such as aggregates, cylinders, corn‐shaped particles, and fibers are often used in the industry. Recently, modeling approaches have been devised to simulate the powder flow and particle−particle interactions in powder processing. In this article, we discuss an educational module developed to introduce students to the modeling of powder processes with particles of various shapes and techniques used for the measurement of powder flow properties. The module was designed to support the undergraduate and graduate courses for chemical, material, mechanical, and civil engineering students. The survey revealed that the module increased students’ theoretical knowledge of the powder processing and developed practical skills in the modeling of powder processes.
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