Robust Critical Connectivity Threshold in Ranked Percolation of Granular Packings.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Physics
• Network Theory

Background:

• Sintering bridge formation in amorphous powders influences powder flow and material quality.
• Surface tension-driven sintering leads to sequential bridge formation, initially favoring smaller particles.
• Understanding the percolation threshold is crucial for controlling sintering.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate ranked percolation in granular packings to predict sintering onset.
• Identify robust estimators for the percolation threshold independent of particle size distribution.
• Explore the relationship between contact distribution and network robustness.

Main Methods:

• Numerical simulations of granular packings.
• Mean-field analysis of particle contact networks.
• Ranked percolation analysis based on contact number.

Main Results:

• The percolation threshold based on connected particle fraction is non-universal and sensitive to size dispersion.
• The critical number of sintered bridges per particle serves as a robust percolation estimator across varying size distributions.
• Robustness is linked to the spatial distribution of particle contacts.

Conclusions:

• A critical number of sintered bridges per particle offers a reliable metric for sintering onset prediction.
• The spatial arrangement of contacts dictates the resilience of granular networks.
• Findings have implications for network resilience analysis in various scientific domains.