Drag and heat transfer coefficients for axisymmetric nonspherical particles: A LBM study

Abstract

In this work, the thermal lattice Boltzmann method with immersed moving boundary conditions has been employed to calculate the drag coefficients and Nusselt numbers for isolated axisymmetric nonspherical particles in uniform flow for a wide range of Reynolds numbers (Re) and aspect ratios (Ar). The simulation results demonstrate that the drag coefficient for ellipsoids and a spherocylinder evolves as sin2θ, viz. θ being the incident angle of the particle. However, the Nusselt number for prolate ellipsoids evolves as sinmθ, viz. m being a function of particle aspect ratio. A correlation for m has been developed for 1<Ar≤4 based on the simulation data. The Nusselt number for a spherocylinder of aspect ratio 4 evolves as sin1.278θ. Moreover, we observe that the drag coefficients and Nusselt numbers for a prolate ellipsoid of aspect ratio 4 and a spherocylinder of aspect ratio 4 are comparable with a maximal relative deviation 5%. Based on the simulation data and the data from literature, a drag correlation for oblate (0.2≤Ar<1 and 1≤Re≤100) and prolate (1≤Ar≤5 and 1≤Re≤2000) ellipsoids has been developed to broaden the range of applicability of existing drag correlations. The average relative deviation between the drag correlation and the fitting data is 9.4%. The Nusselt number correlation for prolate ellipsoids is valid for 1≤Ar≤4 and Re≤500. On the other hand, the Nusselt number correlation proposed for a spherocylinder is valid for Ar=4 and Re≤500. The new drag and Nusselt number correlations are expected to improve the accuracy of Euler-Lagrangian simulations of non-isothermal particulate flows comprising ellipsoids or spherocylinders.