Study of flow resistance coefficients acting on regular non-spherical particles in simple shear flow at moderate Reynolds numbers

Abstract

This contribution is devoted to the study of the aerodynamic characteristics of non-spherical particles of definite regular shape, such as prolate and oblate ellipsoids as well as cylinders, immersed in a locally linear shear flow. The flow resistance coefficients of drag, lift and pitching torque are computed by means of the Particle Resolved Direct Numerical Simulation (PR-DNS) technique for such shapes as function of the Reynolds number Re. The parameter space comprises particle aspect ratio, AR, fluid spin ratio, ζ, and particle orientation angle, α. The Reynolds numbers of interest are in the intermediate range 1≤Re≤100, common in industrial and environmental processes. To properly understand and explain the obtained results, the role of the friction and pressure contributions to total flow coefficients is analyzed in detail for the different cases, allowing the differences between the considered shapes to be pointed out. On the other hand, the behavior of the pressure and skin friction coefficients in the particle plane of symmetry parallel to the flow is investigated as a function of the previous parameters (shape, AR, ζ, α), which provides further insights into the features of the shear flow around the non-spherical particles at finite Re. Finally, the influence of the shear flow magnitude and incidence angle on the location of the center of aerodynamic force is devised for the three shapes considered as function of Reynolds number and particle aspect ratio. It is expected that the information generated in this work will be useful for researchers to enhance the modeling of non-spherical particles immersed in non-uniform flows.