No Arabic abstract
Considering a granular fluid of inelastic smooth hard spheres we discuss the conditions delineating the rheological regimes comprising Newtonian, Bagnoldian, shear thinning, and shear thickening behavior. Developing a kinetic theory, valid at finite shear rates and densities around the glass transition density, we predict the viscosity and Bagnold coefficient at practically relevant values of the control parameters. The determination of full flow curves relating the shear stress $sigma$ to the shear rate $dotgamma$, and predictions of the yield stress complete our discussion of granular rheology derived from first principles.
Non-Newtonian transport properties of an inertial suspension of inelastic rough hard spheres under simple shear flow are determined from the Boltzmann kinetic equation. The influence of the interstitial gas on rough hard spheres is modeled via a Fokker-Planck generalized equation for rotating spheres accounting for the coupling of both the translational and rotational degrees of freedom of grains with the background viscous gas. The generalized Fokker-Planck term is the sum of two ordinary Fokker-Planck differential operators in linear $mathbf{v}$ and angular $boldsymbol{omega}$ velocity space. As usual, each Fokker-Planck operator is constituted by a drag force term (proportional to $mathbf{v}$ and/or $boldsymbol{omega}$) plus a stochastic Langevin term defined in terms of the background temperature $T_text{ex}$. The Boltzmann equation is solved by two different but complementary approaches: (i) by means of Grads moment method, and (ii) by using a Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook (BGK)-type kinetic model adapted to inelastic rough hard spheres. As occurs in the case of emph{smooth} inelastic hard spheres, our results show that both the temperature and the non-Newtonian viscosity increase drastically with increasing the shear rate (discontinuous shear thickening effect) while the fourth-degree velocity moments also exhibit an $S$-shape. In particular, while high levels of roughness may slightly attenuate the jump of the viscosity in comparison to the smooth case, the opposite happens for the rotational temperature. As an application of these results, a linear stability analysis of the steady simple shear flow solution is also carried out showing that there are regions of the parameter space where the steady solution becomes linearly unstable.
Discontinuous shear thickening (DST) observed in many dense athermal suspensions has proven difficult to understand and to reproduce by numerical simulation. By introducing a numerical scheme including both relevant hydrodynamic interactions and granularlike contacts, we show that contact friction is essential for having DST. Above a critical volume fraction, we observe the existence of two states: a low viscosity, contactless (hence, frictionless) state, and a high viscosity frictional shear jammed state. These two states are separated by a critical shear stress, associated with a critical shear rate where DST occurs. The shear jammed state is reminiscent of the jamming phase of granular matter. Continuous shear thickening is seen as a lower volume fraction vestige of the jamming transition.
We present molecular dynamics simulations of pseudo hard sphere fluid (generalized WCA potential with exponents (50, 49) proposed by Jover et al. J. Chem. Phys 137, (2012)) using GROMACS package. The equation of state and radial distribution functions at contact are obtained from simulations and compared to the available theory of true hard spheres (HS) and available data on pseudo hard spheres. The comparison shows agreements with data by Jover et al. and the Carnahan-Starling equation of HS. The shear viscosity is obtained from the simulations and compared to the Enskog expression and previous HS simulations. It is demonstrated that the PHS potential reproduces the HS shear viscosity accurately.
We compute the rheological properties of inelastic hard spheres in steady shear flow for general shear rates and densities. Starting from the microscopic dynamics we generalise the Integration Through Transients (textsc{itt}) formalism to a fluid of dissipative, randomly driven granular particles. The stress relaxation function is computed approximately within a mode-coupling theory---based on the physical picture, that relaxation of shear is dominated by slow structural relaxation, as the glass transition is approached. The transient build-up of stress in steady shear is thus traced back to transient density correlations which are computed self-consistently within mode-coupling theory. The glass transition is signalled by the appearance of a yield stress and a divergence of the Newtonian viscosity, characterizing linear response. For shear rates comparable to the structural relaxation time, the stress becomes independent of shear rate and we observe shear thinning, while for the largest shear rates Bagnold scaling, i.e., a quadratic increase of shear stress with shear rate, is recovered. The rheological properties are qualitatively similar for all values of $varepsilon$, the coefficient of restitution; however, the magnitude of the stress as well as the range of shear thinning and thickening show significant dependence on the inelasticity.
We find in complementary experiments and event driven simulations of sheared inelastic hard spheres that the velocity autocorrelation function $psi(t)$ decays much faster than $t^{-3/2}$ obtained for a fluid of elastic spheres at equilibrium. Particle displacements are measured in experiments inside a gravity driven flow sheared by a rough wall. The average packing fraction obtained in the experiments is 0.59, and the packing fraction in the simulations is varied between 0.5 and 0.59. The motion is observed to be diffusive over long times except in experiments where there is layering of particles parallel to boundaries, and diffusion is inhibited between layers. Regardless, a rapid decay of $psi(t)$ is observed, indicating that this is a feature of the sheared dissipative fluid, and is independent of the details of the relative particle arrangements. An important implication of our study is that the non-analytic contribution to the shear stress may not be present in a sheared inelastic fluid, leading to a wider range of applicability of kinetic theory approaches to dense granular matter.