Simulation of Claylike Colloids

TL;DR

This paper presents a combined MD and SRD simulation approach to study dense suspensions of spherical silt particles, analyzing their interactions, dynamics, and phase behavior.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation method integrating molecular dynamics with stochastic rotation dynamics to model colloidal suspensions with detailed interactions.

Findings

Measured velocity distributions and diffusion coefficients.

Analyzed sedimentation velocities and spatial correlations.

Explored phase diagram variations with parameters.

Abstract

We investigate properties of dense suspensions and sediments of small spherical silt particles by means of a combined Molecular Dynamics (MD) and Stochastic Rotation Dynamics (SRD) simulation. We include van der Waals and effective electrostatic interactions between the colloidal particles, as well as Brownian motion and hydrodynamic interactions which are calculated in the SRD-part. We present the simulation technique and first results. We have measured velocity distributions, diffusion coefficients, sedimentation velocity, spatial correlation functions and we have explored the phase diagram depending on the parameters of the potentials and on the volume fraction.