Hydrodynamic Stress Tensor in Inhomogeneous Colloidal Suspensions: an Irving-Kirkwood Extension*

Abstract

Abstract Based on statistical mechanics for classical fluids, general expressions for hydrodynamic stress in inhomogeneous colloidal suspension are derived on a molecular level. The result is exactly an extension of the Iving-Kirkwood stress for atom fluids to colloidal suspensions where dynamic correlation emerges. It is found that besides the inter-particle distance, the obtained hydrodynamic stress depends closely on the velocity of the colloidal particles in the suspension, which is responsible for the appearance of the solvent-mediated hydrodynamic force. Compared to Brady’s stresslets for the bulk stress, our results are applicable to inhomogeneous suspension, where the inhomogeneity and anisotropy of the dynamic correlation should be taken into account. In the near-field regime where the packing fraction of colloidal particles is high, our results can reduce to those of Brady. Therefore, our results are applicable to the suspensions with low, moderate, or even high packing fraction of colloidal particles.