RESEARCH PROGRAM

Title: On the Design of Particle Functionalized Fluids

 

Name: Zeyad Zaky, PhD

(former student)

 

Project description:

 

Starting situation

Particle flows are ubiquitous in many industries and engineering applications. It is important to understand how the addition of particles into a flow can change relevant flow characteristics, as well as influence the energy transport in the fluid. By simulating a coupled particle-flow problem, we hope to observe these effects. The hope is to gain insight into the effects on the velocity and temperature distributions of the fluid, while also tracking the particle trajectories and thermal effects. Lastly, it is of interest to understand how to calculate effective properties of the fluid, such as viscosity, thermal conductivity, etc.

 

Approach

This problem involves two phases: a fluid phase, and a particle phase. For each phase, different modeling approaches will be used. In the fluid domain, we use continuum based methods and solve the continuity, linear momentum, and thermal energy equations. For the particle phase, we used a discrete element method (DEM) framework. A body force term in the linear momentum equation, and a thermal energy source term in the energy equation are used to couple the particles and the continuum to one another.

 

Expected Results

A priori it is not easy to express what results we expect. What we do hope to see is an effect of the particles on the continuum field. After we are able to see a code that works properly and is stable, we can run several parameter studies and see what quantities and properties have more pronounced effects on the system.