Numerical Simulations of Stick Percolation: Application to the Study of Structured Composites with Total Electrical Anisotropy.

MIETTA, J.L.; NEGRI, RICARDO MARTÍN; TAMBORENEA, PABLO

Congreso; 6th International Conference on Science and Technology of Composite Materials" COMAT 2015; 2015

We explore how structural parameters of composites filled with one-dimensional electrically conducting elements (such as sticks) affect the probability of obtain a system with total electrical anisotropy in terms of percolation properties of the system. Performing Monte Carlo simulations of asymmetric two-dimensional stick systems with anisotropic alignments, we compute percolation probability functions in the direction of preferential orientation of the percolating objects and in the orthogonal direction as functions of the experimental structural parameters (average length of the sticks, the standard deviation of the length distribution, and the standard deviation of the angular distribution). We show that the total electrical anisotropy depends mainly on the standard deviation of the angular distribution and on the average length of the sticks. There is a wide and well-defined range of values for the mentioned parameters for which it is possible to obtain reliable anisotropic percolation under relatively accessible experimental conditions for these systems.