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Updated: Nov 19, 2025

The Diffusion of Passive Tracers in Laminar Shear Flow
Published on: May 1, 2018
Self-diffusion scalings in dense granular flows
Riccardo Artoni1, Michele Larcher2, James T Jenkins3
1MAST-GPEM, Univ Gustave Eiffel, IFSTTAR, F-44344 Bouguenais, France. riccardo.artoni@univ-eiffel.fr.
Abstract:
We report on measurements of self-diffusion coefficients in discrete numerical simulations of steady, homogeneous, collisional shearing flows of nearly identical, frictional, inelastic spheres. We focus on a range of relatively high solid volume fractions that are important in those terrestrial gravitational shearing flows that are dominated by collisional interactions. Diffusion over this range of solid fraction has not been well characterized in previous studies. We first compare the measured values with an empirical scaling based on shear rate previously proposed in the literature, and highlight the presence of anisotropy and the solid fraction dependence. We then compare the numerical measurements with those predicted by the kinetic theory for shearing flows of inelastic spheres and offer an explanation for why the measured and predicted values differ.
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