An SPH Approach for Non-Spherical Particles Immersed in Newtonian Fluids

Solid particles immersed in a fluid can be found in many engineering, environmental or medical fields. Applications are suspensions, sedimentation processes or procedural processes in the production of medication, food or construction materials. While homogenized behavior of these applications is well understood, contributions in the field of pore-scale fully resolved numerical simulations with non-spherical particles are rare. Using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) as a simulation framework, we therefore present a modeling approach for Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) of single-phase fluid containing non-spherically formed solid aggregates. Notable and discussed model specifications are the surface-coupled fluid–solid interaction forces as well as the contact forces between solid aggregates. The focus of this contribution is the numerical modeling approach and its implementation in SPH. Since SPH presents a fully resolved approach, the construction of arbitrary shaped particles is conveniently realizable. After validating our model for single non-spherical particles, we therefore investigate the motion of solid bodies in a Newtonian fluid and their interaction with the surrounding fluid and with other solid bodies by analyzing velocity fields of shear flow with respect to hydromechanical and contact forces. Results show a dependency of the motion and interaction of solid particles on their form and orientation. While spherical particles move to the centerline region, ellipsoidal particles move and rotate due to vortex formation in the fluid flow in between.