TRANSPORT OF A SINGLE SPHERICAL PARTICLE IN LOW REYNOLDS NUMBERS’ LINEAR SHEAR FLOWS: EXPERIMENT AND MODELING

Abstract

Trajectories of a buoyant spherical solid particle in a linear shear flow were investigated at low Reynolds numbers. A two-dimensional CFD analysis was performed to simulate the solid-fluid flow. Our numerical model uses the discrete phase element method (DPM) to simulate the fluid domain and particle (solid phase) motion. The reliability of the computational results was evaluated for the particle trajectory acquired at the University of New Mexico’s stratified linear shear flow generator. The agreement between the numerical results with the experimental data is quantified.