Quantification of the Heterogeneity of Particle Packings

TL;DR

This paper compares three methods to quantify the degree of heterogeneity in particle packings, enabling a quantitative classification of microstructure heterogeneity in colloidal systems.

Contribution

It introduces and evaluates three novel scalar measures for quantifying heterogeneity in particle packings, filling a gap in microstructure analysis.

Findings

All three methods correlate with heterogeneity levels.

The density fluctuation method reveals the length scale of heterogeneity differences.

The measures enable quantitative classification of microstructure heterogeneity.

Abstract

The microstructure of coagulated colloidal particles, for which the inter-particle potential is described by the DLVO theory, is strongly influenced by the particles' surface potential. Depending on its value, the resulting microstructures are either more "homogeneous" or more "heterogeneous", at equal volume fractions. An adequate quantification of a structure's degree of heterogeneity (DOH) however does not yet exist. In this work, methods to quantify and thus classify the DOH of microstructures are investigated and compared. Three methods are evaluated using particle packings generated by Brownian dynamics simulations: (1) the pore size distribution, (2) the density fluctuation method and (3) the Voronoi volume distribution. Each method provides a scalar measure, either via a parameter in a fit function or an integral, which correlates with the heterogeneity of the microstructure and which thus allows for the first time to quantitatively capture the DOH of a granular material. An analysis of the differences in the density fluctuations between two structures additionally allows for a detailed determination of the length scale on which differences in heterogeneity are most pronounced.