Suspending a Solid Sphere in Laminar Inertial Liquid Flow-Experiments and Simulations

The critical conditions for the suspension of single, spherical solid particles by a liquid flow in a square container driven by a rotating disk have been determined. In the experiments, the motion of the sphere has been visualized quantitatively. The conditions are such that the flow in the container is laminar (Reynolds numbers based on the rotating disk characteristics are in the range 10-40). The Archimedes numbers of the spheres are of order 1. The suspension process has also been numerically simulated with full resolution of the liquid flow, including the flow around the sphere, and the translational and rotational motion of the sphere. The simulations recover the critical conditions to within 3% in terms of the rotational speed of the disk. Also the sphere's trajectory in the container is reproduced well by the simulations. (C) 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers