7,042 research outputs found
Wetting gradient induced separation of emulsions: A combined experimental and lattice Boltzmann computer simulation study
Guided motion of emulsions is studied via combined experimental and
theoretical investigations. The focus of the work is on basic issues related to
driving forces generated via a step-wise (abrupt) change in wetting properties
of the substrate along a given spatial direction. Experiments on binary
emulsions unambiguously show that selective wettability of the one of the fluid
components (water in our experiments) with respect to the two different parts
of the substrate is sufficient in order to drive the separation process. These
studies are accompanied by approximate analytic arguments as well as lattice
Boltzmann computer simulations, focusing on effects of a wetting gradient on
internal droplet dynamics as well as its relative strength compared to
volumetric forces driving the fluid flow. These theoretical investigations show
qualitatively different dependence of wetting gradient induced forces on
contact angle and liquid volume in the case of an open substrate as opposed to
a planar channel. In particular, for the parameter range of our experiments,
slit geometry is found to give rise to considerably higher separation forces as
compared to open substrate.Comment: 34 pages, 12 figure
Lattice Boltzmann Simulations of Droplet formation in confined Channels with Thermocapillary flows
Based on mesoscale lattice Boltzmann simulations with the "Shan-Chen" model,
we explore the influence of thermocapillarity on the break-up properties of
fluid threads in a microfluidic T-junction, where a dispersed phase is injected
perpendicularly into a main channel containing a continuous phase, and the
latter induces periodic break-up of droplets due to the cross-flowing.
Temperature effects are investigated by switching on/off both positive/negative
temperature gradients along the main channel direction, thus promoting a
different thread dynamics with anticipated/delayed break-up. Numerical
simulations are performed at changing the flow-rates of both the continuous and
dispersed phases, as well as the relative importance of viscous forces, surface
tension forces and thermocapillary stresses. The range of parameters is broad
enough to characterize the effects of thermocapillarity on different mechanisms
of break-up in the confined T-junction, including the so-called "squeezing" and
"dripping" regimes, previously identified in the literature. Some simple
scaling arguments are proposed to rationalize the observed behaviour, and to
provide quantitative guidelines on how to predict the droplet size after
break-up.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure
Generalized Lattice Boltzmann Method with multi-range pseudo-potential
The physical behaviour of a class of mesoscopic models for multiphase flows
is analyzed in details near interfaces. In particular, an extended
pseudo-potential method is developed, which permits to tune the equation of
state and surface tension independently of each other. The spurious velocity
contributions of this extended model are shown to vanish in the limit of high
grid refinement and/or high order isotropy. Higher order schemes to implement
self-consistent forcings are rigorously computed for 2d and 3d models. The
extended scenario developed in this work clarifies the theoretical foundations
of the Shan-Chen methodology for the lattice Boltzmann method and enhances its
applicability and flexibility to the simulation of multiphase flows to density
ratios up to O(100)
Ludwig: A parallel Lattice-Boltzmann code for complex fluids
This paper describes `Ludwig', a versatile code for the simulation of
Lattice-Boltzmann (LB) models in 3-D on cubic lattices. In fact `Ludwig' is not
a single code, but a set of codes that share certain common routines, such as
I/O and communications. If `Ludwig' is used as intended, a variety of complex
fluid models with different equilibrium free energies are simple to code, so
that the user may concentrate on the physics of the problem, rather than on
parallel computing issues. Thus far, `Ludwig''s main application has been to
symmetric binary fluid mixtures. We first explain the philosophy and structure
of `Ludwig' which is argued to be a very effective way of developing large
codes for academic consortia. Next we elaborate on some parallel implementation
issues such as parallel I/O, and the use of MPI to achieve full portability and
good efficiency on both MPP and SMP systems. Finally, we describe how to
implement generic solid boundaries, and look in detail at the particular case
of a symmetric binary fluid mixture near a solid wall. We present a novel
scheme for the thermodynamically consistent simulation of wetting phenomena, in
the presence of static and moving solid boundaries, and check its performance.Comment: Submitted to Computer Physics Communication
Mesoscopic simulation study of wall roughness effects in micro-channel flows of dense emulsions
We study the Poiseuille flow of a soft-glassy material above the jamming
point, where the material flows like a complex fluid with Herschel- Bulkley
rheology. Microscopic plastic rearrangements and the emergence of their spatial
correlations induce cooperativity flow behavior whose effect is pronounced in
presence of confinement. With the help of lattice Boltzmann numerical
simulations of confined dense emulsions, we explore the role of geometrical
roughness in providing activation of plastic events close to the boundaries. We
probe also the spatial configuration of the fluidity field, a continuum
quantity which can be related to the rate of plastic events, thereby allowing
us to establish a link between the mesoscopic plastic dynamics of the jammed
material and the macroscopic flow behaviour
Computer simulations of domain growth and phase separation in two-dimensional binary immiscible fluids using dissipative particle dynamics
We investigate the dynamical behavior of binary fluid systems in two
dimensions using dissipative particle dynamics. We find that following a
symmetric quench the domain size R(t) grows with time t according to two
distinct algebraic laws R(t) = t^n: at early times n = 1/2, while for later
times n = 2/3. Following an asymmetric quench we observe only n = 1/2, and if
momentum conservation is violated we see n = 1/3 at early times. Bubble
simulations confirm the existence of a finite surface tension and the validity
of Laplace's law. Our results are compared with similar simulations which have
been performed previously using molecular dynamics, lattice-gas and
lattice-Boltzmann automata, and Langevin dynamics. We conclude that dissipative
particle dynamics is a promising method for simulating fluid properties in such
systems.Comment: RevTeX; 22 pages, 5 low-resolution figures. For full-resolution
figures, connect to http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~ken21/tension/tension.htm
Impact-Induced Hardening in Dense Frictional Suspensions
By employing the lattice Boltzmann method, we perform simulations of dense
suspensions under impacts, which incorporate the contact between suspended
particles as well as the free surface of the suspension. Our simulation for a
free falling impactor on a dense suspension semi-quantitatively reproduces
experimental results, where we observe rebounds of the impactor by the
suspension containing frictional particles for high speed impact and high
volume fraction shortly after the impact before subsequently sinking. We
observe that the response depends on the radius of the impactor, which leads to
fitting our simulation data to a phenomenological model based on the Hertzian
contact theory. When the rebound takes place, percolated force chains are
formed by the frictional contacts between suspended particles. Furthermore,
persistent homology analysis is used to elucidate the significance of the
topological structure of the force chains, where the total persistence of
connected components correlates with the force supporting the impactor
Contact angle determination in multicomponent lattice Boltzmann simulations
Droplets on hydrophobic surfaces are ubiquitous in microfluidic applications
and there exists a number of commonly used multicomponent and multiphase
lattice Boltzmann schemes to study such systems. In this paper we focus on a
popular implementation of a multicomponent model as introduced by Shan and
Chen. Here, interactions between different components are implemented as
repulsive forces whose strength is determined by model parameters. In this
paper we present simulations of a droplet on a hydrophobic surface. We
investigate the dependence of the contact angle on the simulation parameters
and quantitatively compare different approaches to determine it. Results show
that the method is capable of modelling the whole range of contact angles. We
find that the a priori determination of the contact angle is depending on the
simulation parameters with an uncertainty of 10 to 20%.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure
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