Dynamics of particle lane formation in confined viscoelastic fluids under shear

Abstract

Simple shear flow can induce flow-aligned chain formation of particles suspended in viscoelastic fluids. Although this phenomenon has been reported for decades, direct {\it in situ} measurements of the alignment dynamics and particle trajectories during chain formation remain limited. Here, we develop an {\it in situ} observation platform based on parallel rotating disks separated by a gap comparable to the particle diameter, enabling simultaneous observation of particle alignment under radially varying shear rates. The narrow gap strongly confines particle motion, thereby enhancing hydrodynamic interactions and collision events between particles. Using a viscoelastic fluid embedding zircon particles as the sample, we find that alignment occurs once the local particle Weissenberg number exceeds unity (Wi$_\mathrm{p} \geq 1$), defined using an effective shear rate based on the wall velocity and the available gap width. Particle tracking further reveals a back-and-forth shuttling motion that accompanies the alignment process. Using the image brightness in a colored fluid as a proxy for out-of-plane position, we show that the shuttling originates from vertical displacement of the particles. We further construct a minimal agent-based model in which the vertical particle position follows a Ginzburg-Landau-type double-well potential, and demonstrate that collision-driven accumulation emerges in numerical simulations. In the strongly confined geometry, alignment occurs by an effective attraction due to collision, which is reminiscent of motility-induced clustering often observed in active matter.