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