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Granular Materials and Sustainable Industrial Processes

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Engineering and Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2021) | Viewed by 2108

Special Issue Editor

FRSC, School of Chemical and Processing Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Interests: powder technology; photonics for stress measurements and mechanics of materials; multi-scale modelling and simulations; particulate mechanics; modelling the spread of COVID-19
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Granular materials exhibit a spectacular variety of unusual and unpredictable characteristics under different industrial process environments - they behave differently from conventional solid, liquid, and gaseous matter. They are of high relevance in different engineering applications including from chemical, civil, mechanical, food, energy, materials, and space engineering sectors.

The processing behaviours of individual grains and their assemblies are extremely complex to understand at a fundamental level. Worldwide, scientists and engineers research for bridging the gaps in our understanding between the roles of single-grain scale properties, through different intermediate scales to the bulk processing characteristics of granular materials.  Furthermore, there is an urgent need to understand the impacts of global demands in developing sustainable and efficient manufacturing processes, for example, in responding to global warming and unforeseen emergencies such as COVID-19 at present.  These challenges require to develop better understandings on the way granular materials are utilised and processed in different industries as addressed in this timely special issue. This issue welcomes manuscripts from a variety of academic, industrial and government bodies on the related area of research including the following indicative topics (though the list is not exclusive):

(1)           Mechanics and physics of granular processes at different scales, for example, molecular, nano, micro, and macroscopic properties

(2)           Advanced experimental characterisations of granular materials and processes

(3)           Modelling granular processes at individual and (/or) multi-scales

(4)           Green engineering of granular processes, for example, leading to energy savings and net-zero emissions

(5)           Responding to emergencies in granular processes, for example, accounting for COVID-19 in granular industries

(6)           Developments of industrial policies and practices related to granular materials

(7)           Any combination of the above topics for developing next-generation granular processes and products

Dr. S. Joseph Antony
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • granular materials
  • granular mechanics
  • granular physics
  • powders
  • grains
  • powder processing
  • particulate mechanics
  • sustainable processes
  • green industries
  • mechanics of materials
  • powder technology

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 9495 KiB  
Article
Whole-Field Stress Sensing and Multiscale Mechanics for Developing Cement-Based Composites Containing Recycled Municipal Granular Wastes
by S. Joseph Antony, George Okeke, D. Deniz G. Tokgoz and N. Gozde Ozerkan
Sustainability 2021, 13(2), 848; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13020848 - 16 Jan 2021
Viewed by 1475
Abstract
Worldwide, there is a growing level of interest to develop sustainable cement-based products and processes in which the usage of natural resources such as sand and limestone are reduced from the current levels. One of the ways to achieve this is by replacing [...] Read more.
Worldwide, there is a growing level of interest to develop sustainable cement-based products and processes in which the usage of natural resources such as sand and limestone are reduced from the current levels. One of the ways to achieve this is by replacing them with suitable inclusions of recycled granular materials from municipal wastes where possible. However, to understand the effects of such inclusions in concrete structures, research advancements are needed to sense and characterise the distribution of stresses (/strains) at the local scale and to establish their links with the fracture and bulk strength characteristics under external loading environments, which is the focus here. In this research, polyethylene (PE)-based granular materials derived from municipal wastes and fly ash obtained from the incineration of municipal solid wastes are used together as secondary raw materials in preparing the concrete mixtures. Photo stress analysis (PSA) is performed here, making non-contact and whole-field digital measurements of maximum shear stress distribution and the directions of the principal stresses at any point of interest on the surface of the samples under external loading. Their links with the fracture toughness and flexural strength of the samples cured at different times are presented. The novel PSA-based stresssensing helps to establish new understandings of the strength characteristics of composites across scales in the applications involving recycling and reusing conventional wastes and possibly in otherengineering applications in the future. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Granular Materials and Sustainable Industrial Processes)
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