Finite difference method in prolate spheroidal coordinates for freely suspended spheroidal particles in linear flows of viscous and viscoelastic fluids

Abstract

A finite difference scheme is used to develop a numerical method to solve the flow of an unbounded viscoelastic fluid with zero to moderate inertia around a prolate spheroidal particle. The equations are written in prolate spheroidal coordinates, and the shape of the particle is exactly resolved as one of the coordinate surfaces representing the inner boundary of the computational domain. As the prolate spheroidal grid is naturally clustered near the particle surface, good resolution is obtained in the regions where the gradients of relevant flow variables are most significant. This coordinate system also allows large domain sizes with a reasonable number of mesh points to simulate unbounded fluid around a particle. Changing the aspect ratio of the inner computational boundary enables simulations of different particle shapes ranging from a sphere to a slender fiber. Numerical studies of the latter particle shape allow testing of slender body theories. The mass and momentum equations are solved with a Schur complement approach allowing us to solve the zero inertia case necessary to isolate the viscoelastic effects. The singularities associated with the coordinate system are overcome using L'Hopital's rule. A straightforward imposition of conditions representing a time-varying combination of linear flows on the outer boundary allows us to study various flows with the same computational domain geometry. For the special but important case of zero fluid and particle inertia we obtain a novel formulation that satisfies the force- and torque-free constraint in an iteration-free manner. The numerical method is demonstrated for various flows of Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids around spheres and spheroids (including those with large aspect ratio). Good agreement is demonstrated with existing theoretical and numerical results.