Screened and unscreened phases in sedimenting suspensions

Levine, Alex ; Ramaswamy, Sriram ; Frey, Erwin ; Bruinsma, Robijn (1998) Screened and unscreened phases in sedimenting suspensions Physical Review Letters, 81 (26). pp. 5944-5947. ISSN 0031-9007

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Official URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.594...

Related URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.5944

Abstract

A coarse-grained stochastic hydrodynamical description of velocity and concentration fluctuations in steadily sedimenting suspensions is constructed, and analyzed using self-consistent and renormalization group methods. We find that there exist a dynamical, non-equilibrium phase transition from an "unscreened" phase in which we recover the Caflisch-Luke (R.E. Calflisch and J.H.C. Luke, Phys. Fluids 28, 759 (1985)) divergence of the velocity variance to a "screened" phase where the velocity fluctuations have a finite correlation length growing as φ-⅓ where φ is the particle volume fraction, in agreement with segré et al, [Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 2574 (1997)] and the velocity variance is independent of system size. Detailed predictions are made for the correlation function in both phases and at the transition.

Item Type:Article
Source:Copyright of this article belongs to The American Physical Society.
ID Code:39910
Deposited On:20 May 2011 05:21
Last Modified:17 May 2016 22:11

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