Statistical description of the shear-induced diffusion of a suspension of non-Brownian particles

Abstract

Using mesoscopic nonequilibrium thermodynamics, we calculate the
entropy production of a dilute suspension of non-Brownian
particles subject to an oscillatory shear flow. We find that an
Onsager coupling leads to a breakdown of the
fluctuation-dissipation theorem and to the shear induced diffusion
effect observed in experiments. By contracting the description, we
derive a Smoluchowski equation from which the scaling of the mean
square displacement on the shear rate and particle diameter
reported in experiments is obtained. We also perform lattice
Boltzmann simulations to show the shear induced diffusion effects,
and how the transition to irreversibility can be characterized
through the power spectra of particle trajectories.