Hydrodynamic and Brownian fluctuations in sedimenting suspensions

J.T. Padding, A.A. Louis

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    Abstract

    The interplay between hydrodynamic and Brownian fluctuations during steady-state sedimentation of hard sphere particles for Peclet numbers (Pe) ranging from 0.1-15 was studied using a mesoscopic computer simulation. A stochastic rotation dynamics (SRD) to the problem of sedimenting HS was adapted to perform the simulations. It was shown that the hydrodynamic interactions (HI) induce backflow effects that dominate the reduction of the average sedimentation velocity with increasing particle packing fraction, even when the they were an order of magnitude weaker than Brownian forces. It was observed that the velocity fluctuations begin to show nonequilibrium hydrodynamic character for Pe>1.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article number220601
    Pages (from-to)220601-1/4
    Number of pages4
    JournalPhysical Review Letters
    Volume93
    Issue number22
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2004

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