Dynamics of rotating paramagnetic particle chains simulated by particle dynamics, Stokesian dynamics and lattice Boltzmann methods

Abstract

Paramagnetic particles, when subjected to external unidirectional rotating magnetic fields, form chains which rotate along with the magnetic field. In this paper three simulation methods, particle dynamics (PD), Stokesian dynamics (SD) and lattice Boltzmann (LB) methods, are used to study the dynamics of these rotating chains. SD simulations with two different levels of approximations—additivity of forces (AF) and additivity of velocities (AV)—for hydrodynamic interactions have been carried out. The effect of hydrodynamic interactions between paramagnetic particles under the effect of a rotating magnetic field is analyzed by comparing the LB and SD simulations, both of which include hydrodynamic interactions, with PD simulations in which hydrodynamic interactions are neglected. It was determined that for macroscopically observable properties like average chain length as a function of Mason number, reasonable agreement is found between all the three methods. For microscopic properties like the force distribution on each particle along the chain, inclusion of hydrodynamic interaction becomes important to understand the underlying physics of chain formation.