Clogging transition and anomalous transport in driven suspensions in a disordered medium

TL;DR

This study computationally investigates how increasing particle and obstacle concentrations in disordered media lead to different flow regimes, anomalous transport, and clogging, revealing a gradual transition characterized by coexistence of mobile and arrested particles.

Contribution

It identifies the transition from anomalous transport to clogging in driven suspensions and highlights the generality of these regimes across different disordered systems.

Findings

Clogging is preceded by a region of anomalous transport with power-law decay.

Flow involves coexistence of mobile and arrested particles near clogging.

Transport regimes are qualitatively similar to those in single bottleneck scenarios.

Abstract

We study computationally the dynamics of forced, Brownian particles through a disordered system. As the concentration of mobile particles and/or fixed obstacles increase, we characterize the different regimes of flow and address how clogging develops. We show that clogging is preceded by a wide region of anomalous transport, characterized by a power law decay of intermittent bursts. We analyze the velocity distribution of the moving particles and show that this abnormal flow region is characterized by a coexistence between mobile and arrested particles, and their relative populations change smoothly as clogging is approached. The comparison of the regimes of anomalous transport and clogging with the corresponding scenarios of particles pushed through a single bottleneck show qualitatively the same trends highlighting the generality of the transport regimes leading to clogging.