Interface-resolved simulations of particle suspensions in visco-elastic carrier fluids

• We study the rheology of a suspension of neutrally buoyant rigid particles subject touniform shear in different kinds of non-Newtonian fluids, chosen in order to disentanglethe effect of elasticity and shear thinning on the macroscopic system behavior. In par-ticular, we adopt the inelastic Carreau, viscoelastic Oldroyd-B and Giesekus models forthe carrier fluid. The rheology of the suspension is analyzed for a wide range of particlevolume fractions, Weissenberg and Reynolds numbers, comparing the results with thoseobtained for a Newtonian carrier fluid. We report here that the effective viscosity per-taining all the non-Newtonian cases is always lower than that of the suspension in theNewtonian carrier fluid and grows monotonically with the solid volume fraction. Theshear-thinning viscoelastic Giesekus fluid behaves similarly to the Oldroyd-B fluid at lowWeissenberg numbers and to the Carreau fluid at high Weissenberg numbers, indicatingthat elastic effects dominate at low Weissenberg and shear thinning is predominant athigh Weissenberg number. These variations in the effective viscosity are mainly due tochanges in the particle induced shear stress component. These data show that, at highshear rates, a viscoelastic carrier fluid can be modelled as a simple shear-thinning fluidfor which theoretical closures exists, while new models are needed at low Weissenbergnumbers to account for elastic effects such as decreased particle stress. Finally, when theinertia is increased, the suspension effective viscosity grows with the particle Reynoldsnumber at the same rate as in a Newtonian fluid for the Oldroyd-B case, while in ashear-thinning fluid the growth is less than in the Newtonian fluid. Also in the presenceof inertia, therefore, the shear-thinning behaviour dominates the suspension dynamics atrelatively high values of the imposed shear rate and elasticity effects saturate.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

particle/fluid flow

rheology

suspensions

Visco-elastic

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)