aEcole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris, Centre de Mise en Forme des Matériaux, UMR CNRS/Ecole des Mines 7635, 1 rue claude Daunesse, BP 207, 06904 Sophia-Antipolis, France
Abstract:
The 3D flow around a rigid spherical particle suspended in a Newtonian fluid and submitted to simple shear is numerically studied using Rem3D® finite element code. The sphere motion is imposed by a sticking contact between the sphere and the fluid. The effect of the particle size as compared with the finite dimension of the shear cell was investigated. The direct calculations show that 3D modelling is necessary to correctly predict the sphere behaviour. The proximity of the particle and the cell walls strongly affects the flow velocities, the sphere motion (increase of the rotation period of the sphere) and the stress field (change of orientation angle and increase of maximal local stresses).