Sterically hindered fragmentation in reactive solids

A two-dimensional model of a two-phase solid which undergoes a reaction at its surface is used to study the fragmentation of reactive materials in which the morphological hindering of fragment release is considered. Scaling concepts of cluster percolation theory are used to evaluate Monte Carlo data generated from a simulation of the hindered fragmentation process. By defining a hierarchy of fragmentation objects, different scaling exponents are computed for each of these objects as measured by the number of sub-objects they contain. In addition, it appears that each of the different measures of object size exhibits optimum scaling at a different critical reactive-phase mass fraction; simulation data indicate that the critical mass fractions follow a trend consistent with expected physical behaviour of the system. In addition, the critical mass fractions reported correspond to 'virtual' criticalities, i.e. the critical points cannot result in actual divergences in size, but rather are properties of the scaling functions.