Fully Resolved Simulation of Particulate Flow Using a Sharp Interface Direct Forcing Immersed Boundary Method

Abstract

In this paper, the sharp interface, direct forcing immersed boundary method developed by Yang and Stern (A simple and efficient direct forcing immersed boundary framework for fluid-structure interactions, J. Comput. Phys. 231 (2012) 5029–5061) is applied to the fully resolved simulation of particulate flow. This method uses a discrete forcing approach and maintains a sharp profile of the fluid/solid interface. Also, it employs a strong coupling scheme for fluid-structure interaction through a predictor-corrector algorithm. The fluid flow solver is not included in the predictor-corrector iterative loop thanks to the direct forcing idea, which makes the overall algorithm highly efficient and very attractive for the fully resolved simulation of particulate flow with numerous solid particles. Several cases including sedimenting and buoyant particles and the interaction of two sedimenting particles showing kissing, drafting, and tumbling phenomenon are examined and compared with the reference results to demonstrate the simplicity and applicability of our method in particulate flow simulations.