Stresses in inhomogeneous suspensions

A microscopic expression for the divergence of the stress tensor is derived for inhomogeneous suspensions of rigid colloidal particles of arbitrary shape. This expression is valid for arbitrary large gradients in the shear rate, concentration, and orientational order parameters. The corresponding Navier-Stokes equation is a necessary ingredient to describe phenomena like shear-banding, phase separation kinetics, and phase coexistence under shear flow conditions. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.