SPH modeling and simulation of spherical particles interacting in a viscoelastic matrix

In this work, we extend the three-dimensional Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) non-colloidal particulate model previously developed for Newtonian suspending media in Vázquez-Quesada and Ellero [“Rheology and microstructure of non-colloidal suspensions under shear studied with smoothed particle hydrodynamics,” J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mech. 233, 37–47 (2016)] to viscoelastic matrices. For the solvent medium, the coarse-grained SPH viscoelastic formulation proposed in Vázquez-Quesada, Ellero, and Español [“Smoothed particle hydrodynamic model for viscoelastic fluids with thermal fluctuations,” Phys. Rev. E 79, 056707 (2009)] is adopted. The property of this particular set of equations is that they are entirely derived within the general equation for non-equilibrium reversible-irreversible coupling formalism and therefore enjoy automatically thermodynamic consistency. The viscoelastic model is derived through a physical specification of a conformation-tensor-dependent entropy function for the fluid particles. In the simple case of suspended Hookean dumbbells, this delivers a specific SPH discretization of the Oldroyd-B constitutive equation. We validate the suspended particle model by studying the dynamics of single and mutually interacting “noncolloidal” rigid spheres under shear flow and in the presence of confinement. Numerical results agree well with available numerical and experimental data. It is straightforward to extend the particulate model to Brownian conditions and to more complex viscoelastic solvents

Mini-Workshop: Interface Problems in Computational Fluid Dynamics

Multiple difficulties are encountered when designing algorithms to simulate flows having free surfaces, embedded particles, or elastic containers. One difficulty common to all of these problems is that the associated interfaces are Lagrangian in character, while the fluid equations are naturally posed in the Eulerian frame. This workshop explores different approaches and algorithms developed to resolve these issues

DNS of dispersed multiphase flows with heat transfer and rarefaction effects

We propose a method for DNS of particle motion in non-isothermal systems. The method uses a shared set of momentum and energy balance equations for the carrier- and the dispersed phases. Measures are taken to ensure that non-deformable entities (solid particles) behave like rigid bodies. Moreover, deformable entities (e.g. bubbles) as well as rarefaction effects can be accommodated. The predictions of the method agree well with the available data for isothermal solid particles motion in the presence of walls and other particles, natural convection around a stationary particle, solid particles motion accompanied with heat transfer effects and isothermal solid particles motion under rarefied conditions. The method is used to investigate the simultaneous effects of heat transfer and rarefaction on the motion of a solid catalyst particle in an enclosure, the interaction of a solid particle and a microbubble in a flotation cell and a case with more than 1000 particles

Normal lubrication force between spherical particles immersed in a shear-thickening fluid

In this work, the inverse bi-viscous model [Physics of Fluids 29, 103104 (2017)] is used to describe a shear-thickening fluid. An analytical velocity profile in a planar Poiseuille flow is utilized to calculate an approximate solution to the generalized lubrication force between two close spheres interacting hydrodynamically in such a medium. This approximate analytical expression is compared to the exact numerical solution.The flow topology of the shear-thickening transition within the interparticle gap is also shown and discussed in relation to the behaviour of the lubrication force. The present result can allow in the future to perform numerical simulations of dense particle suspensions immersed in a shear-thickening matrix based on an effective lubrication force acting between pairwise interacting particles. This model may find additional value in representing experimental systems consisting of suspensions in shear thickening media, polymer coated suspensions, and industrial systems such as concrete

Numerical investigation of the rheological behavior of a dense particle suspension in a biviscous matrix using a lubrication dynamics method

This paper presents a numerical approach to predict the rheology of dense non-colloidal suspensions with a biviscous matrix. A biviscous matrix is characterized as a fluid with two shear rate dependent viscosities i.e. one above and below a critical shear rate $\dot{\gamma}_c$ . The methodology is based on the lubrication dynamics which dominantly influence the suspension properties at high values of particle concentration. To efficiently handle the singular lubrication forces in the dense suspensions, a semi-implicit splitting integration scheme is employed. Using the presented approach, three dimensional simulations were performed and the predicted rheology of the suspension with a biviscous matrix is discussed under two regimes: (a) $\dot{\gamma}_c$ larger than the macroscopic applied shear rate where fluid slippage effect can be modeled in terms of the non-Newtonian properties of the matrix, and (2) $\dot{\gamma}_c$ smaller than the macroscopic applied shear rate where a biviscous model can be seen as a regularization of an apparent yield stress matrix. The results obtained at high $\dot{\gamma}_c$ show that the shear thinning of the biviscous matrix in the inter-particle gaps, which can be interpreted as an apparent fluid slipping on the particle surface, provides an alternative mechanism to explain the experimentally observed shear-thinning of non-colloidal suspension with Newtonian matrices. At low γ̇c values, the predicted suspension properties and its microstructure corroborates the available experimental results on suspensions with yield stress fluids

National laboratories` capabilities summaries for the DOE Virtual Center for Multiphase Dynamics (VCMD)

The Virtual Center For Multiphase Dynamics (VCMD) integrates and develops the resources of industry, government, academia, and professional societies to enable reliable analysis in multiphase computational fluid dynamics. The primary means of the VCMD focus will be by the creation, support, and validation of a computerized simulation capability for multiphase flow and multiphase flow applications. This paper briefly describes the capabilities of the National Laboratories in this effort

A conservative lubrication dynamics method for the simulation of dense non-colloidal suspensions with particle spin

In this paper, a novel Fast Lubrication Dynamics method that can efficiently simulate dense non-colloidal suspensions is proposed. To reduce the computational cost in the presented methodology, interparticle lubrication-based forces and torques alone are considered together with a short-range repulsion to enforce finite inter-particle separation due to surface roughness, Brownian forces or other excluded volume effects. Given that the lubrication forces are singular, i.e. scaling inversely with the inter-particle gap, the strategy to expedite the calculations is severely compromised if explicit integration schemes are used, especially at high concentrations. To overcome this issue, an efficient semi-implicit splitting integration scheme to solve for the particles translational and rotational velocities is presented. To validate the proposed methodology, a suspension under simple shear test is simulated in three dimensions and its rheology is compared against benchmark results. To demonstrate the stability/speed-up in the calculations, performance of the proposed semi-implicit scheme is compared against a classical explicit Velocity-Verlet scheme. The predicted viscometric functions for a non-colloidal suspension with a Newtonian matrix are in excellent agreement with the reference data from the literature. Moreover, the presented semi-implicit algorithm is found to be significantly faster than the classical lubrication dynamics methods with Velocity-Verlet integration schemes