Hydrodynamic effects in sedimentation
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Principal investigators: Erik Luijten (UIUC) Student: Jonathan K. Whitmer
Objective
Understand hydrodynamic effects on colloidal sedimentation.
Approach
Implement “stochastic rotation dynamics” for colloidal suspensions. Here the fluid is treated in a coarse-grained manner, but in sufficient detail to reproduce true hydrodynamics. While much more efficient than full-scale fluid simulation, this is still a time-consuming method.
Significant results
We have now successfully implemented a parallel version that exhibits unprecedented scalability. The code will be made freely available to others.
Why it matters
Colloidal sedimentation and templating are important in many industrial areas, such as photonic bandgap materials and novel data storage media. Conventional simulation methods do not incorporate important hydrodynamic effects. With excellent scalability, our method makes it possible to address new classes of problems.
Funding
MCC & NSF CAREER Award
Sedimenting, attractive colloids (green) in an environment of 500,000 fluid particles (not shown)
