Piastra Marco, Virga Epifanio G
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale e dell'Informazione, Università di Pavia, via Ferrata 1, I-27100 Pavia, Italy.
Dipartimento di Matematica, Università di Pavia, Via Ferrata 1, I-27100 Pavia, Italy.
Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2013 Dec;88(6):064501. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.88.064501. Epub 2013 Dec 5.
By a formal analytic argument based on Minkowski's expression for the isotropic average of the excluded volume of convex bodies, we reproduce the exact formula for the excluded volume of two spherorods-also known by the more traditional name of spherocylinders, which is classically derived through a geometric construction. By applying the same argument to spherodisks, which represent discotic platelets, we obtain a simple explicit formula for their excluded volume, whose validity is corroborated by a shape-reconstruction algorithm.
