Interdisciplinary Seminar Series


Title: Modeling Oxidation Dynamics of Metal Particles

Speaker: Maxim Zyskin, Rutgers University

Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 12:00 - 1:00pm

Location: DIMACS Center, CoRE Bldg, Room 431, Rutgers University, Busch Campus, Piscataway, NJ

Seminar hosted by James Abello, DIMACS


Abstract:

Nano-energetic materials, formed by mixing nano-sized metal and oxidizer particles, have important applications as gas generators. Recent experiments indicate that nano-energetic materials exceed performance of other gas generating materials. In this talk, I discuss modeling nano-energetic materials using a Mott oxidation model. This is a moving boundary-type model, a nonlinear version of the Hele-Shaw problem. In the model, one has to solve a Dirichlet problem for a nonlinear Poisson equation for the electric potential in the oxide layer, while Neumann data for the potential determine the normal velocity of the oxide layer boundary. There is a local-in-time existence of a solution result; however the existence time and type of singularities which may form are not understood. I will describe results for oxidation dynamics and pressure wave generation in the case of spherical particles, and will discuss modeling oxidation dynamics of particles of general shapes based on mappings to fixed domains and associated sub-solution methods.


DIMACS/CCICADA Interdisciplinary Series, Complete Calendar