The influence of surface forces on shear-induced tracer diffusion in mono and bidisperse suspensions

The shear-induced self-diffusivity of tracer particles of radius a (t) = lambda a in a suspension of particles having a radius, a, is calculated by Stokesian dynamics for different values of the size ratio, lambda , both in 2 and 3 dimensions in the binary-collision regime. The self-diffusion is found to decrease strongly when the size ratio becomes quite different from unity. On the other hand, for the same average distance of contact between two spheres, the presence of a soft force always increases greatly the diffusion compared to the effect of a hard shell which is used to model the roughness. This is particularly true for tracer particles smaller than the bath particles, where the shear-induced diffusion can be increased by many order of magnitudes in the presence of a soft force. For suspensions of monodisperse particles we show that, for low volume fraction, the diffusion coefficient is much smaller than the one predicted by the binary collision model, due to the existence of a layered structure. On the contrary at higher volume fraction, many-body collisions strongly enhance the diffusion and it appears that the value of the diffusion is quite sensitive to the presence of clusters of particles which are themselves determined by the range of interparticle forces.