Non-equilibrium velocity distributions in sheared hard-sphere
suspensions
J. Harting, H.J. Herrmann, E. Ben-Naim
Velocity probability distribution functions (PDF) of sheared
hard-sphere suspensions can show pronounced deviations from a
Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. We investigate such suspensions by
means of simulations and a single-particle theory and demonstrate that
the PDF is symmetric around zero velocity and shows a Gaussian core
and an exponential tail over more than six orders of magnitude of
probability. Following the excellent agreement of our theory and
simulation data, we show that the PDFs scale with shear rate dot gamma
as well as particle volume concentration phi, and kinematic viscosity
nu.
source,
ps,
pdf