Lagrangian blocking in highly viscous shear flows past a sphere

Abstract

An analytical and computational study of Lagrangian trajectories for linear shear flow past a sphere or spheroid at low Reynolds numbers is presented. Using the exact solutions available for the fluid flow in this geometry, we discover and analyse blocking phenomena, local bifurcation structures and their influence on dynamical effects arising in the fluid particle paths. In particular, building on the work by Chwang & Wu, who established an intriguing blocking phenomenon in two-dimensional flows, whereby a cylinder placed in a linear shear prevents an unbounded region of upstream fluid from passing the body, we show that a similar blocking exists in three-dimensional flows. For the special case when the sphere is centred on the zero-velocity plane of the background shear, the separatrix streamline surfaces which bound the blocked region are computable in closed form by quadrature. This allows estimation of the cross-sectional area of the blocked flow showing how the area transitions from finite to infinite values, depending on the cross-section location relative to the body. When the sphere is off-centre, the quadrature appears to be unavailable due to the broken up-down mirror symmetry. In this case, computations provide evidence for the persistence of the blocking region. Furthermore, we document a complex bifurcation structure in the particle trajectories as the sphere centre is moved from the zero-velocity plane of the background flow. We compute analytically the emergence of different fixed points in the flow and characterize the global streamline topology associated with these fixed points, which includes the emergence of a three-dimensional bounded eddy. Similar results for the case of spheroids are considered in Appendix B. Additionally, the broken symmetry offered by a tilted spheroid geometry induces new three-dimensional effects on streamline deflection, which can be viewed as effective positive or negative suction in the horizontal direction orthogonal to the background flow, depending on the tilt orientation. We conclude this study with results on the case of a sphere embedded at a generic position in a rotating background flow, with its own prescribed rotation including fixed and freely rotating. Exact closed-form solutions for fluid particle trajectories are derived.