Nonlinear clogging of a rectangular slit by a spherical soft particle

Abstract

The capture of a soft spherical particle by a rectangular slit leads to a non-monotonic pressure-flow rate relation at low Reynolds number. In the presence of the trapped particle the flow-induced deformations focus the streamlines and pressure drop to a small region. This increases the resistance to flow by several orders of magnitude as the driving pressure is increased. As a result two regimes are observed: a flow-dominated regime for small particle deformations, where flow rate increases with pressure, and an elastic-dominated regime in which solid deformations block the flow.