Engineering topics
Kou, Binquan
Publications and source records attributed to Kou, Binquan.
The structural origin of the hard-sphere glass transition in granular packing
Glass transition is accompanied by a rapid growth of the structural relaxation time and a concomitant decrease of configurational entropy. It remains unclear whether the transition has a thermodynamic origin, and whether the dynamic arrest is associated with the growth of a certain static order. Using granular packing as a model hard-sphere glass, we show the glass transition as a thermodynamic phase transition with a ‘hidden’ polytetrahedral order. This polytetrahedral order is spatially correlated with the slow dynamics. It is geometrically frustrated and has a peculiar fractal dimension. Additionally, as the packing fraction increases, its growth follows an entropy-driven nucleation process, similar to that of the random first-order transition theory. In conclusion, our study essentially identifies a long-sought-after structural glass order in hard-sphere glasses.
Angularly anisotropic correlation in granular packings
We present an x-ray microtomography study of the three-dimensional structural correlations in monodisperse granular packings. By measuring an orientation-dependent pair correlation function, we find that the local structure shows an angularly anisotropic orientation correlation. The correlation is strongest along the major axis of the local Minkowski tensor of the Voronoi cell. It turns out that this anisotropic correlation is consistent with the existence of some locally favored structures. The study suggests the importance of high-order structural correlations in random granular packings.