Clogging transition and anomalous transport in driven suspensions in a disordered medium

Area of Science:

• Physics
• Complex Systems
• Statistical Mechanics

Background:

• Understanding particle flow in disordered media is crucial for various scientific and industrial applications.
• Clogging phenomena in granular materials and suspensions present significant challenges in fluid dynamics and transport processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To computationally investigate the dynamics of forced Brownian particles in disordered systems.
• To characterize flow regimes and understand the development of clogging as particle and obstacle concentrations increase.
• To identify transport anomalies preceding clogging and compare these with single-bottleneck scenarios.

Main Methods:

• Computational simulation of forced, Brownian particle dynamics.
• Analysis of particle velocity distributions and flow regimes.
• Systematic variation of mobile particle and fixed obstacle concentrations.
• Comparison with particle flow through a single bottleneck.

Main Results:

• Identified distinct flow regimes and characterized clogging development.
• Demonstrated that clogging is preceded by anomalous transport with power-law decay of intermittent bursts.
• Observed coexistence of mobile and arrested particles in the anomalous flow region, with smoothly changing populations.
• Found qualitative similarities between disordered systems and single-bottleneck scenarios.

Conclusions:

• Anomalous transport, marked by mobile and arrested particle coexistence, universally precedes clogging in disordered systems.
• The observed transport regimes leading to clogging exhibit generality, applicable to both complex disordered media and simpler bottleneck constrictions.
• Computational modeling provides insights into the fundamental mechanisms driving clogging and anomalous transport in particle systems.