Study on binary collision of rod-like particles under simple shear flow

Abstract

In this study a theoretical study is carried out on the collision of two rod-like particles suspended in Newtonian fluid under a shear flow. The length of the particle is fixed at 2 mu m while the diameter is varied so that the aspect ratio (length/diameter) varies from 1 to 20. Liquid viscosity is changed from 0.01 to 1 Pa center dot s. The Brownian motion is considered to be negligible. Both hydrodynamic and van der Waals interactions are included in tracking the position and the orientation of each particle. The Hamaker constant is fixed at 1.06 x 10(-20)J. The result shows that the kinetic constant of coagulation is reduced to approximately 40% of the value for the non-interacting particles when the viscosity is 1 Pa center dot s. As collision modes, face-edge, side-side, side-edge and edge-edge are considered. The side-edge mode is most frequently observed in the given range of aspect ratio.