Shear-induced dispersion in a dilute suspension of rough spheres

Abstract

In the absence of Brownian motion, inertia and inter-particle forces, two smooth spheres collide in a simple shear flow in a reversible way returning to their initial streamlines. Because the minimum separation during the collision can be less than 10−4 of the radius, quite a small surface roughness can have a significant irreversible effect on the collision. We calculate the change between the initial and final streamlines caused by roughness. Repeated random collisions in a dilute suspension lead to a diffusion of the particles across the streamlines. We calculate the shear-induced diffusivity for both self-diffusion and down-gradient diffusion.