Anomalous Transport of Elongated Particles in Oscillatory Vortical Flows

TL;DR

This study explores how elongated particles move in oscillating vortical flows, revealing complex diffusion behaviors and new ways to control particle transport in fluid systems.

Contribution

It uncovers the non-monotonic relationship between particle length and transport rate, and identifies mechanisms for controlling diffusion via flow oscillation frequencies.

Findings

Transport anomalies depend on particle length and flow frequency.

Subdiffusion occurs due to long-time trapping in vortices.

Subdiffusion persists despite random noise.

Abstract

We investigate the transport dynamics of elongated particles in cellular vortical flows that undergo spatial oscillations over time. Experimental flow visualizations reveal mixed flow fields with chaotic and elliptic regions coexisting. Surprisingly, the particle transport rate does not increase monotonically with particle length, even though longer particles are expected to explore neighboring vortices more easily. Numerical simulations in a much larger system produce similar transport anomalies, characterized by subdiffusion due to frequent long-time trapping in vortices at certain lengths, but normal diffusion at others. At moderate oscillation frequencies, these long-time trapping events occur within the chaotic region; at high frequencies, they occur in the elliptic regions, but only for particles whose lengths match these regions. In the latter case, subdiffusion is robust against random noise. Our results reveal new mechanisms for controlling particle diffusion in fluid flows.