Two-phase couette flow

Abstract

A study is made of plane laminar Couette flow, in which foreign particles are injected through the upper boundary. The effect of the particles on friction and heat transfer is analyzed on the basis of the equations of two-fluid theory. A two-phase boundary layer on a plate has been considered in [1, 2] with the effect of the particles on the gas flow field neglected. A solution has been obtained in [3] for a laminar boundary layer on a plate with allowance for the dynamic and thermal effects of the particles on the gas parameters. There are also solutions for the case of the impulsive motion of a plate in a two-phase medium [4–6], and local rotation of the particles is taken into account in [5, 6]. The simplest model accounting for the effect of the particles on friction and heat transfer for the general case, when the particles are not in equilibrium with the gas at the outer edge of the boundary layer, is Couette flow. This type of flow with particle injection and a fixed surface has been considered in [7] under the assumptions of constant gas viscosity and the simplest drag and heat-transfer law. A solution for an accelerated Couette flow without particle injection and with a wall has been obtained in [6]. In the present paper fairly general assumptions are used to obtain a numerical solution of the problem of two-phase Couette flow with particle injection, and simple formulas useful for estimating the effect of the particles on friction and heat transfer are also obtained.