Effective viscosity of a two dimensional passive suspension in a liquid crystal solvent

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Auteurs principaux: Dang, S., Blanch-Mercader, C., Berlyand, L.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Dang, S.
Blanch-Mercader, C.
Berlyand, L.
author_facet Dang, S.
Blanch-Mercader, C.
Berlyand, L.
contents Suspension of particles in a fluid solvent are ubiquitous in nature, for example, water mixed with sugar or bacteria self-propelling through mucus. Particles create local flow perturbations that can modify drastically the effective (homogenized) bulk properties of the fluid. Understanding the link between the properties of particles and the fluid solvent, and the effective properties of the medium is a classical problem in fluid mechanics. Here we study a special case of a two dimensional model of a suspension of undeformable particles in a liquid crystal solvent. In the dilute regime, we calculate asymptotic solutions of the perturbations of the velocity and director fields and derive an explicit formula for an effective shear viscosity of the liquid crystal medium. Such effective shear viscosity increases linearly with the area fraction of particles, similar to Einstein formula but with a different prefactor. We provide explicit asymptotic formulas for the dependence of this prefactor on the material parameters of the solvent. Finally, we identify a case of decreasing the effective viscosity by increasing the magnitude of the shear-flow alignment coefficient of the liquid crystal solvent.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_11749
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Effective viscosity of a two dimensional passive suspension in a liquid crystal solvent
Dang, S.
Blanch-Mercader, C.
Berlyand, L.
Soft Condensed Matter
Suspension of particles in a fluid solvent are ubiquitous in nature, for example, water mixed with sugar or bacteria self-propelling through mucus. Particles create local flow perturbations that can modify drastically the effective (homogenized) bulk properties of the fluid. Understanding the link between the properties of particles and the fluid solvent, and the effective properties of the medium is a classical problem in fluid mechanics. Here we study a special case of a two dimensional model of a suspension of undeformable particles in a liquid crystal solvent. In the dilute regime, we calculate asymptotic solutions of the perturbations of the velocity and director fields and derive an explicit formula for an effective shear viscosity of the liquid crystal medium. Such effective shear viscosity increases linearly with the area fraction of particles, similar to Einstein formula but with a different prefactor. We provide explicit asymptotic formulas for the dependence of this prefactor on the material parameters of the solvent. Finally, we identify a case of decreasing the effective viscosity by increasing the magnitude of the shear-flow alignment coefficient of the liquid crystal solvent.
title Effective viscosity of a two dimensional passive suspension in a liquid crystal solvent
topic Soft Condensed Matter
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.11749