Parameterization of hydrodynamic friction in a model for sheared suspensions of rough particles

TL;DR

This paper develops a parameterized model for hydrodynamic friction in rough particle suspensions, capturing the effects of surface roughness on particle interactions and suspension viscosity.

Contribution

It introduces a new resistance model for rough spheres, linking surface asperities to enhanced frictional modes and providing a method to infer model parameters from experimental data.

Findings

Resistance to sliding and rolling diverges as 1/h for rough spheres

Model parameters can be inferred from pair rotation rate measurements

Viscosity divergence depends on the friction coupling range

Abstract

We propose a method to parameterize a coarse grained model for the hydrodynamic friction between nearly touching rough spheres in suspension flows. The frictional resistance due to surface roughness primarily alters the sliding and rolling modes of motion of rough particles. Stokesian dynamics simulations incorporating a near-field pairwise resistance model accounting for these enhanced frictional modes were employed to compute particle trajectories in shear flow. In this model, the resistance to sliding and rolling modes of motion are augmented from a weakly diverging log$(1/h)$ form for smooth spheres to a strongly diverging $1/h$ form for rough spheres to account for the additional resistance due to squeezing flows between surface asperities, where $h$ is the mean surface separation between particles. We determine new bounds on the relative magnitude of the augmentations to the resistance to different modes of motion using inequality constraints reflecting the positive definiteness of the Stokes resistance tensor for a pair of rough particles. Using the simulations of a particle pair in a shear flow, a simple model for angular rotation rate of the pair centerline is computed as a function of its orientation in the shear flow and the free parameters of the hydrodynamic resistance model: the friction coupling strength, $\alpha$, and friction coupling range, $h_0$. Values of $\alpha$ and $h_0$ for real-world rough particles can then be inferred by matching the pair rotation rate in the model to experimental observations when a dilute rough particle suspension is subjected to a linear shear flow. The same model is used to calculate the hydrodynamic contribution to the high frequency viscosity of rough particle suspensions. For different $\alpha$ and $h_0$, we observe that the viscosity diverges differently depending on $h_0$.