Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.51, No.7, 3186-3196, 2012
Flow and Drag Phenomena of Tandem Spheroid Particles at Finite Reynolds Numbers
Two dimensional steady Newtonian flow over tandem spheroid particles has been numerically investigated by solving the continuity and momentum equations along with appropriate boundary conditions. The main focus is to elucidate effects of the Reynolds number (Re), the particle aspect ratio (e) and the interparticle distance (S) on the flow and drag phenomena of tandem spheroid particles. To avoid numerical artifacts, extensive domain and grid independence studies have been carried out. For the case of tandem spherical particles, that is, for e = 1, the present results are in excellent agreement with existing experimental and numerical results. Further extensive new results have been obtained in the range of conditions 1 <= Re <= 100, 0.25 <= e <= 2.5, and 2 <= S <= 6. For different combination of Re, e, and S, complicated flow structures have been observed around both leading and trailing particles especially for large values of Re and e; and for small values of S. The influence of the leading particle on the drag force of the trailing particle is significantly larger than that of the trailing particle on the leading particle. This observation is consistent with previous experimental observations for the case of two tandem spheres, that is, for e = 1. Furthermore, drag coefficients of leading particles are close to those of unbounded isolated particles. For all values of the Reynolds number and aspect ratio, as the value of the interparticle distance increases, the individual and total drag coefficients increase.