Motion of spheroid particles in shear flow with inertia

Abstract

AbstractIn this article, we investigate the motion of a solid spheroid particle in a simple shear flow. Using a lattice Boltzmann method, we examine individual effects of fluid inertia and particle rotary inertia as well as their combination on the dynamics and trajectory of spheroid particles at low and moderate Reynolds numbers. The motion of a single spheroid is shown to be dependent on the particle Reynolds number, particle aspect ratio, particle initial orientation and the Stokes number. Spheroids with random initial orientations are found to drift to stable orbits influenced by fluid inertia and/or particle inertia. Specifically, prolate spheroids drift towards the tumbling mode of motion, whereas oblate spheroids drift to the rolling mode. The rotation period and the variation of angular velocity of tumbling spheroids decrease as Stokes number increases. With increasing Reynolds number, both the maximum and minimum values of angular velocity decrease, whereas the particle rotation period increases. We show that particle inertia does not affect the hydrodynamic torque on the particle. We also demonstrate that superposition can be used to estimate the combined effect of fluid inertia and particle inertia on the dynamics of spheroid particles at sufficiently low Reynolds numbers.