Fluids, hard-sphere model

In the theory of the liquid state, the hard-sphere model plays an important role. For hard spheres, the pair interaction potential V r) = qo for r < J, where d is the particle diameter, whereas V(r) = 0 for r s d. The stmcture of a simple fluid, such as argon, is very similar to that of a hard-sphere fluid. Hard-sphere atoms do, of course, not exist. Certain model colloids, however, come very close to hard-sphere behaviour. These systems have been studied in much detail and some results will be quoted below. 

To simulate the particle-particle collision, the hard-sphere model, which is based on the conservation law for linear momentum and angular momentum, is used. Two empirical parameters, a restitution coefficient of 0.9 and a friction coefficient of 0.3, are utilized in the simulation. In this study, collisions between spherical particles are assumed to be binary and quasi-instantaneous. The equations, which follow those of molecular dynamic simulation, are used to locate the minimum flight time of particles before any collision. Compared with the soft-sphere particle-particle collision model, the hard-sphere model accounts for the rotational particle motion in the collision dynamics calculation thus, only the translational motion equation is required to describe the fluid induced particle motion. In addition, the hard-sphere model also permits larger time steps in the calculation therefore, the simulation of a sequence of collisions can be more computationally effective. The details of this approach can be found in the literature (Hoomans et al., 1996 Crowe et al., 1998). 

C. Vegaet al., The fluid-solid equilibrium for a charged hard sphere model revisited. J. Chem. Phys. 119, 964-971 (2003)... 

For real fluids the hard-sphere model gives a reasonable approximation to long-time phenomena, such as particle diffusion, but it is not realistic for short-time phenomena, such as collisional excitation of the internal motions of molecules, because of the impulsive nature of hard-sphere impacts. In the next two sections the more realistic case will be studied in which the test particle-bath particle interaction occurs through a continuous central potential. 

There are two main approaches for the numerical simulation of the gas-solid flow 1) Eulerian framework for the gas phase and Lagrangian framework for the dispersed phase (E-L) and 2) Eulerian framework for all phases (E-E). In the E-L approach, trajectories of dispersed phase particles are calculated by solving Newton s second law of motion for each dispersed particle, and the motion of the continuous phase (gas phase) is modeled using an Eulerian framework with the coupling of the particle-gas interaction force. This approach is also referred to as the distinct element method or discrete particle method when applied to a granular system. The fluid forces acting upon particles would include the drag force, lift force, virtual mass force, and Basset history force.Moreover, particle-wall and particle-particle collision models (such as hard sphere model, soft sphere model, or Monte Carlo techniques) are commonly employed for this approach. In the E-E approach, the particle cloud is treated as a continuum. Local mean... 

The potential U(r ) is a sum over all intra- and intermolecular interactions in the fluid, and is assumed known. In most applications it is approximated as a sum of binary interactions, 17(r ) = IZ > w(rzj) where ry is the vector distance from particle i to particle j. Some generic models are often used. For atomic fluids the simplest of these is the hard sphere model, in which z/(r) = 0 for r > a and M(r) = c for r < a, where a is the hard sphere radius. A. more sophisticated model is the Lennard Jones potential... 

Just as the ideal gas forms a convenient point of reference in discussing the properties of real gases, so does the hard-sphere fluid in discussing the properties of liquids. This is especially true at low densities, where the role of intermolecular forces in real systems is not so important. In this limit, the hard-sphere model is useful in developing the theory of solutions, as will be seen in chapter 3. 

The solid-fluid transition in the hard-sphere system has been the subject of great interest for about 50 years now. Although it was originally only a computer model, researchers in colloid science have come close to a complete experimental realization of the hard-sphere model [2,3]. The hard-sphere system is one with an intermolecular potential of the form... 

The possibility of a fluid-to-solid transition in the hard-sphere model was first predicted by Kirkwood and his co-workers [17-19]. This prediction was part of the stimulus for the celebrated studies of hard spheres by Alder and Wainwright [20] at the Lawrence-Livermore National Laboratory using the molecular dynamics (MD) method and by Wood and Jacobson [21] at the... 

A worthwhile question to ask is why there should be a phase transition from a fluid to a solid in the hard-sphere model. We can formulate an initial perspective by considering the configurational Helmholtz free energy of the hard-sphere system, which is related to the configurational partition function via... 

Fig. 21. Entropy versus log-temperature diagram for the hard-sphere model. The solid curves give the computer simulation values for the supercooled fluid, glass, and crystal. The dashed curves have the following bases (a) a calculation from the virial equation using the known first seven coefficients and higher coefficients obtained from the conjectured closure (the plot corresponds quite closely with that calculated from the Camahan-Starling equation ) and (i>) an extrapolation of higher temperature behavior such as that used by Gordon et al., which implies a maximum in the series of virial coefficients. The entropy is defined in excess of that for the ideal gas at the same temperature and pressure. Some characteristic temperatures are identified 7, fusion point 7 , upper glass transition temperature T/, Kauzmann isoentropic point according to closure virial equation.

Real fluids are neither ideal gases nor are they composed of hard spheres. But if the density is low, a gas might be nearly ideal, or if the temperature is high, a gas might behave somewhat like a fluid of hard spheres. In such cases the ideal-gas or hard-sphere models may serve as references in expansions that approximate real behavior. In this section we consider Taylor expansions (see Appendix A) of the compressibility factor Z about that for the ideal gas. The expansions may be done using either density or pressure as the independent variable we introduce the density expansion first. 

---