Migration and agglomeration of adhesive microparticle suspensions in a pressure‐driven duct flow

Abstract

AbstractTransport of suspensions consisting of monodisperse adhesive microparticles in a pressure‐driven duct flow with the Reynolds number in the range of 5.4–108 is analyzed by means of a coupled lattice Boltzmann method with the discrete element method. The influence of the adhesion on migration and agglomeration of particles is investigated. The results show that the suspensions undergo a transition from purely lateral focusing to completely agglomeration as the surface energy is increased. A dimensionless adhesion number, defined as the ratio of the adhesive force to the drag force, is employed to characterize the degree of agglomeration. It is found that all the particles come into agglomerates as the adhesion number reaches a critical value. Moreover, a detailed examination of size evolution and velocity illustrates that the agglomerates mainly grow spherically, and their velocities depend on the lateral positions rather than their sizes, as the Stokes number is far below one.