Enskog kinetic theory for multicomponent granular suspensions

TL;DR

This paper derives the Navier--Stokes transport coefficients for multicomponent granular suspensions at moderate densities using Enskog kinetic theory, accounting for inelastic collisions, viscous drag, and stochastic forces.

Contribution

It extends previous dilute suspension models to higher densities, providing explicit forms of transport coefficients considering inelasticity and gas-phase effects.

Findings

Transport coefficients depend differently on inelasticity compared to dry granular gases.

Explicit steady-state forms of diffusion, viscosity, and temperature contributions are obtained.

Theoretical results are extended to higher densities beyond dilute regimes.

Abstract

The Navier--Stokes transport coefficients of multicomponent granular suspensions at moderate densities are obtained in the context of the (inelastic) Enskog kinetic theory. The suspension is modeled as an ensemble of solid particles where the influence of the interstitial gas on grains is via a viscous drag force plus a stochastic Langevin-like term defined in terms of a background temperature. In the absence of spatial gradients, it is shown first that the system reaches a homogeneous steady state where the energy lost by inelastic collisions and viscous friction is compensated for by the energy injected by the stochastic force. Once the homogeneous steady state is characterized, a \emph{normal} solution to the set of Enskog equations is obtained by means of the Chapman--Enskog expansion around the \emph{local} version of the homogeneous state. To first-order in spatial gradients, the Chapman--Enskog solution allows us to identify the Navier--Stokes transport coefficients associated with the mass, momentum, and heat fluxes. In addition, the first-order contributions to the partial temperatures and the cooling rate are also calculated. Explicit forms for the diffusion coefficients, the shear and bulk viscosities, and the first-order contributions to the partial temperatures and the cooling rate are obtained in steady-state conditions by retaining the leading terms in a Sonine polynomial expansion. The results show that the dependence of the transport coefficients on inelasticity is clearly different from that found in its granular counterpart (no gas phase). The present work extends previous theoretical results for \emph{dilute} multicomponent granular suspensions [Khalil and Garz\'o, Phys. Rev. E \textbf{88}, 052201 (2013)] to higher densities.