Dresden 2014 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 36: Colloids and Complex Liquids II

CPP 36.11: Talk

Wednesday, April 2, 2014, 17:45–18:00, ZEU 114

Smoothed particle hydrodynamics of complex fluids — •Daniel Rings and Peter Olmsted — University of Leeds

The rheology of complex liquids such as polymer solutions is of great interest in various disciplines and the commonly used theoretical research tools range from analytic phenomenological models to large-scale molecular dynamics simulations. Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is a promising hybrid method which combines microscopic detail of a certain extent with computational efficiency. Originally invented for astrophysical calculations, this Lagrangian method approximates the solution to the (slightly compressible) Navier--Stokes equations by smoothly interpolating the fields which are evaluated at advected virtual particles. The appeal of this method is its relative ease to deal with complicated boundary conditions without the need for mesh construction and to capture spatial inhomogeneities and temporal transients. Last but not least, it can be implemented on the basis of existing molecular dynamics software.

For a fluid with a non-monotonic flow curve, we study in detail the shear banding transition and how it is affected by the presence of immersed rigid colloids. We discuss discrepancies between different apparent stress states and comment on the interpretation of results obtained within the framework of SPH---of particular interest in view of the growing use of this method in computational fluid dynamics.