Viewing posts for the category Featured on frontpage
Two-dimensional collisions
Posted by: christian in Featured on frontpage on 24 Jun 2019
This small Python project is a physical simulation of two-dimensional physics. The animation is carried out using Matplotlib's FuncAnimation method and is implemented by the class Simulation. Each "particle" of the simulation is represented by an instance of the Particle class and depicted as a circle with a fixed radius which undergoes elastic collisions with other particles.
Packing circles inside a shape
Posted by: christian in Featured on frontpage on 5 Jun 2019
A previous blog post dealt with packing circles into a circle. To fill an arbitrary shape, a slightly different approach is needed. The code presented in my github repo.
Packing circles in a circle
Posted by: christian in Featured on frontpage on 2 Jun 2019
The following code attempts to pack a predefined number of smaller circles (of random radii between two given limits) into a larger one.
Simulating two-dimensional polycrystals
Posted by: christian in Featured on frontpage on 31 Mar 2019
The following code simulates (very approximately) the growth of a polycrystal from a number of seeds. Atoms are added to the crystal lattice of each of the resulting grains until no more will fit, creating realistic-looking boundaries where two grains meet.
Breeding tritium for a fusion reactor
Posted by: christian in Featured on frontpage on 9 Jan 2019
The most feasible nuclear reaction for a "first-generation" fusion reaction is the one involving deuterium (D) and tritium (T): $$ \mathrm{D} + \mathrm{T} \rightarrow \alpha (3.5\;\mathrm{MeV}) + n (14.1\;\mathrm{MeV}) $$ Tritium is not a primary fuel and does not exist in significant quantities naturally since it decays with a half life of 12.3 years. It therefore has to be "bred" from a separate nuclear reaction. Most fusion reactor design concepts employ a lithium "blanket" surrounding the reaction vessel which absorbs the energetic fusion neutrons to produce tritium in such a reaction.