Hydrodynamics for a granular binary mixture at low density

Abstract

Hydrodynamic equations for a binary mixture of inelastic hard spheres are derived from the Boltzmann kinetic theory. A normal solution is obtained via the Chapman–Enskog method for states near the local homogeneous cooling state. The mass, heat, and momentum fluxes are determined to first order in the spatial gradients of the hydrodynamic fields, and the associated transport coefficients are identified. In the same way as for binary mixtures with elastic collisions, these coefficients are determined from a set of coupled linear integral equations. Practical evaluation is possible using a Sonine polynomial approximation, and is illustrated here by explicit calculation of the relevant transport coefficients: the mutual diffusion, the pressure diffusion, the thermal diffusion, the shear viscosity, the Dufour coefficient, the thermal conductivity, and the pressure energy coefficient. All these coefficients are given in terms of the restitution coefficients and the ratios of mass, concentration, and particle sizes. Interesting and new effects arise from the fact that the reference states for the two components have different partial temperatures, leading to additional dependencies of the transport coefficients on the concentration. The results hold for arbitrary degree of inelasticity and are not limited to specific values of the parameters of the mixture. Applications of this theory will be discussed in subsequent papers.