Generic behaviours in impact fragmentation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a numerical model using molecular dynamics to study impact fragmentation, revealing a universal power law fragment size distribution that varies with energy, aligning with experimental observations.

Contribution

The study demonstrates that a simple molecular dynamics model can reproduce generic fragmentation behaviors, including energy-dependent power law distributions.

Findings

Fragment size distribution follows a power law.

Exponent increases logarithmically with impact energy.

Results align with experimental data.

Abstract

We present a simple numerical model for investigating the general properties of fragmentation. By use of molecular dynamics simulations, we study the impact fragmentation of a solid disk of interacting particles with a wall. Regardless of the particular form of the interaction potential, the fragment size distribution exhibits a power law behaviour with an exponent that increases logarithmically with the energy deposited in the system, in agreement with experiments. We expect this behaviour to be generic in fragmentation phenomena.