Dynamical scaling of fragment distribution in drying paste

TL;DR

This paper uses smoothed particle hydrodynamics to simulate drying paste, revealing that fragment sizes decay inversely with time and follow a universal scaling distribution during drying.

Contribution

It demonstrates the application of smoothed particle hydrodynamics to model drying paste patterns and uncovers a universal scaling law for fragment size distribution.

Findings

Fragment size decays proportionally to inverse time during drying.

Distribution of fragment sizes follows a universal scaling law.

Simulation reproduces realistic drying patterns.

Abstract

We reproduce patterns of drying paste by means of smoothed particle hydrodynamics which is the one of methods for solving the equations of continuum in the Lagrangian description. In addition to reproduce a realistic pattern, we find that average size of fragments decays in proportion to inverse time in the case of a linear drying process. Distributions of the size of the fragments are obtained depending on the time. We find a universal scaling distribution by scaling analysis with the average size of the fragment.