Drag on Sticky and Janus (Slip-Stick) Spheres Confined in a Channel

Abstract

Flow over a sphere is a frequently occurring phenomenon in a range of industries. The sphere is confined in a channel in most of these applications. Therefore, it is important to understand the effect of confinement on the hydrodynamics of the flow around a sphere placed in a channel. These spheres can be bubbles, solid particles or droplets resulting in different boundary conditions (stick or slip) on the surface of the sphere. In recent years, Janus spheres having slip and stick boundary conditions on parts of the sphere have gained importance because of their potential applications. In this article, drag coefficient for a spherical particle fixed at the centerline of a channel of square cross-section is obtained computationally for stick, slip, and stick-slip surfaces of the sphere for a range of particle Reynolds numbers (1–80) and particle to channel size ratios (0.05–0.80). Further, the position of stick particle in the channel is varied to understand the effect of particle location on the drag coefficient. Correlations are proposed to calculate the drag coefficient for no-slip and Janus particles when the particle is at the channel center.