Sticky elastic collisions

J. Bec (1) , Stefano Musacchio (2) , Sankar Ray Samriddhi (3)

1 LAGRANGE - Joseph Louis LAGRANGE
2 LJAD - Laboratoire Jean Alexandre Dieudonné
3 ICTS-TIFR - International Centre for Theoretical Sciences [TIFR]

The effects of purely elastic collisions on the dynamics of heavy inertial particles are investigated in a three- dimensional random incompressible flow. It is shown that the statistical properties of interparticle separations and relative velocities are strongly influenced by the occurrence of sticky elastic collisions--particle pairs undergo a large number of collisions against each other during a small time interval over which, hence, they remain close to each other. A theoretical framework is provided for describing and quantifying this phenomenon and it is substantiated by numerical simulations. Furthermore, the impact of hydrodynamic interactions is discussed for such a system of colliding particles.

Domaines: Dynamique des Fluides [physics.flu-dyn]

J. Bec, Stefano Musacchio, Sankar Ray Samriddhi. Sticky elastic collisions. Physical Review E : Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics, 2013, 87, pp.063013. ⟨hal-00874603⟩