The effect of wall slip on the dynamics of a spherical particle in Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids subjected to shear and Poiseuille flows

Abstract

We address the effect of wall slip on the dynamics of a spherical particle suspended in an inertialess Newtonian or viscoelastic shear-thinning fluid under shear or Poiseuille flow. The study is performed through 3D direct finite element simulations by employing an Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian method for the particle motion.In both shear and Poiseuille flows, wall slip reduces the difference between the particle translational velocity along the flow direction and the velocity of the unperturbed fluid, and slows down the particle rotational velocity. Remarkably, in a viscoelastic fluid, the presence of wall slip reverses the migration direction as compared to the no-slip case. Hence, for sufficiently high slip coefficients, all the particles migrate toward the channel midplane in shear flow and toward the channel centerline in Poiseuille flow, regardless of their initial position through the channel.