Slow motion of two spheres in a shear field

Abstract

The exact solution of the Stokes equations for the creeping motion of two spheres of arbitrary size and arbitrarily oriented with respect to a shear field is obtained by use of spherical bipolar co-ordinates. Numerical results are given for two special cases: (1) the free motion of two equal-sized spheres in simple shear flow and (2) the free motion of a sphere near a wall in the rotational shear field between two parallel disks rotating at different rates. The sphere trajectories calculated for the first of these problems are found to agree fairly well with those observed experimentally.