Research Projects

Understanding the kinematics of complex soft matter systems, such as colloids, structural glasses, polymers, foams, gels, granular matter, and biological materials, is crucial for various industrial applications. Researchers focus on the flow curve, stress vs. strain or strain rate, which depends on the interaction among constituents. For example, dry granular systems follow Bagnold's scaling for packing fraction of grains close to jamming density. However, when grains are immersed in a liquid, attractive interactions develop up to a specific range due to the capillary effect, resulting in nonmonotonic behavior. The form of flow curves depends on the strength of attractive interaction and packing fraction of particles in the system. This project aims to study the rheological responses of charged granular systems, such as wind-blown sand. The change in charge in any interacting neighbor changes the effective interaction in the charged granular system, and the charge-charge interaction is long-ranged. This makes charged systems a fertile field for further investigation. The project will model the interaction potential for charged granular systems, perform molecular dynamics simulations with different boundary conditions and geometry, and propose an appropriate mean-field-like model to explain numerically obtained results.