An interaction site approach to clustering and percolation phenomena in systems of nonspherical particles

Abstract

We present a new approach to the theory of clustering and percolation phenomena in assemblies of nonspherical particles. The method is based on an interaction site formalism. By treating each particle in the assembly as a collection of interaction sites we are able to formulate the connectivity problem in terms of a site–site pair connectedness function, Pαβ(r). Through adaptation of existing results in the theory of pair correlations in interaction site systems the cluster expansion of Pαβ(r) has been obtained and two Ornstein–Zernike-like integral equations are developed through which Pαβ(r) may be calculated. As an illustration of the approach results are presented for a system consisting of dumbbells randomly distributed in a matrix.