Sedimentation of an elliptic rigid particle in a yield-stress fluid: A Lattice-Boltzmann simulation

Abstract

Sedimentation of a single, two-dimensional, rigid, elliptic particle in a biviscous fluid contained in a finite, closed-ended channel is studied in this work using the lattice-Boltzmann method. The main objective of the work is to numerically investigate the role played by a fluid’s yield stress on the trajectory, orientation, and terminal velocity of such a particle for different density and aspect ratios. Numerical results suggest that a new mode of settling might emerge for yield-stress fluids, which is nonexistent for Newtonian fluids. That is, a particle released from the rest state at the midplane with a prescribed, nonzero, inclination angle (with respect to the horizontal line) migrates toward the left side-wall (if the inclination angle is positive) soon after it is released but changes course after a short while and moves back toward the centerline where the voyage started. However, while for Newtonian fluids the particle eventually returns to the centerline and continues its free fall with a horizontal orientation, for yield-stress fluids, the particle might finally lodge at a specific distance away from the centerline and continue its fall assuming a nonhorizontal orientation. The offset position is predicted to be a function of the Bingham number and the density ratio but independent of the initial inclination angle.