Postgraduate research opportunities What makes particle packings stable? Explaining and engineering random loose packing
ApplyKey facts
- Opens: Thursday 22 February 2024
- Deadline: Monday 31 March 2025
- Number of places: 1
- Duration: 3 years
- Funding: Home fee, Stipend
Overview
How particles pack together to make stable structures has been addressed by scientists and engineers including Kepler, Coulomb and Maxwell. We will use computational models to obtain new insight relevant to chemical reactors, sediments, tablets, adsorbents and many other materials.Eligibility
Students applying should have (or expect to achieve) a minimum 2.1 undergraduate degree in a relevant engineering/science discipline, and be very motivated to undertake highly multidisciplinary research.
Project Details
How particles pack together to make stable structures is a puzzle that has been addressed by many illustrious scientists and engineers, including Kepler, Coulomb and James Clerk Maxwell. Recent interest has grown from a need to design porous packings or materials for a range of critical applications, such as absorption and molecular storage for CO2 and H2, effective filtration eg in water treatment, understanding sediment formation and soil instabilities in natural phenomena and for climate resilience, improving particulate processes such as tableting in foods and pharmaceuticals, and designing innovative materials such as structured low-density solids for construction, aerospace, transport and packaging. Of particular interest is the case of small particles, where thermal energy fluctuations (Brownian motion) play an important role: this case includes packings made from chemical and physical flocculation/gelation, with applications such as manufacture of adsorbents and porous materials; and natural sedimentation processes involving microscopic particles such as fines, micropollutants and algae. A much studied starting point for particle packings is the simplified model of a packing of spherical, monosized, rigid particles. A well-defined limit in this case is so-called random close packing (RCP), the maximum solids volume fraction that can be achieved with randomly positioned spheres, found from models and experiments to be around 64% solids. Less clear is so-called random loose packing (RLP). Depending on conditions, it is found that packings can be stable (against further compression or sedimentation under gravity) even though much more dilute than RCP, experiments identifying a random loose packing limit around 55%. However the reasons for this limit and for the existence of multiple quasi-stable loose packing states between RCP and RLP are not understood. The aim of this PhD project is therefore to explain how structure and dynamics lead to so-called loose packing; and to build on this understanding to enhance structural design control over packings, opening up new routes to innovative materials. The engineering goal is to be able to obtain stable packings at any chosen particle content by altering the process conditions of formation. But such design is only possible if we understand the structural and dynamic reasons for the emergence of stability in this loose packing regime. How stability arises as a connected solid ‘network’ of particles forms is a critical question also in related areas such as the flow of high solids-content suspensions (eg pastes, blood, cement), particulate processing and transport, non-Newtonian rheological materials such as yield stress and shear-thickening suspensions, flow and deformation in geological systems, and even more generally, basic theories of jamming in traffic and pedestrian flow. Understanding what structural and dynamic effects are responsible for the onset of stable packing is thus a critical question with wide-ranging implications for science and engineering across many lengthscales. The goal of the project is to build this understanding using recent developments in modelling and analysis methods, whose advantage is that they are simple to implement and to draw insight from, while retaining features consistent with real experimental materials.
In addition to undertaking cutting edge research, students are also registered for the Postgraduate Certificate in Researcher Development (PGCert), which is a supplementary qualification that develops a student’s skills, networks and career prospects.
Further information
The University of Strathclyde is a socially progressive institution that strives to ensure equality of opportunity and celebrates the diversity of its student and staff community. Strathclyde is people-oriented and collaborative, offering a supportive and flexible working culture with a deep commitment to our equality, diversity and inclusion charters, initiatives, groups and networks.
We strongly encourage applications from Black, Asian and minority ethnicity, women, LGBT+, and disabled candidates and candidates from lower socio-economic groups and care-experienced backgrounds.
Funding details
The funding package (including both fees and stipend) is available for UK students. The project is also open to international students where the difference between the home fee and the international fee amount is required from external funding.
Apply
Number of places: 1
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Chemical and Process Engineering
Programme: Chemical and Process Engineering
Contact us
- chemeng-pg-admissions@strath.ac.uk
- James Weir Building, 75 Montrose Street, Glasgow, G1 1XJ