DOI: 10.1051/jp1:1994197
J. Phys. I France 4 (1994) 1427-1438

Simulation of the growth of a binary composite by a controlled thermal annealing

R.B. Pandey¹, R.S. Sinkovits², E.S. Oran² and J.P. Boris<sup>2

1</sup>  The Program in Scientific Computing, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5046, U.S.A.
²  Laboratory for Computational Physics and Fluid Dynamics, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375, U.S.A.

(Received 3 June 1994, received in final form 13 June 1994, accepted 21 June 1994)

Abstract
The Metropolis algorithm is used to study the evolution of the density profile of particle species in a model binary composite material on a simple cubic lattice. A specified fraction of the lattice sites are occupied by particles of type A and the remaining sites are occupied by particles of type B. The Hamiltonian for the system includes both nearestneighbor particle-particle interactions and the interaction of the particle with a gravitational field. Particle-particle interaction strength, gravity, and the temperature govern the hopping of each particle in our annealing process. Variation of the planar density of the system by particle type is studied as a function of annealing time, temperature, and the volume fraction of the two components. We observe a variety of density distributions such as a linear density gradient with the thickness, staircase like variation in mass distribution, and their combinations over the length scales which depend on these parameters. The simulations show that a graded material with a desired density distribution can be designed by appropriately controlling the annealing period, temperature, and the volume fraction.

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