Forces and torques on a sphere moving near a dihedral corner in creeping flow

Abstract

The low-Reynolds-number flow past a sphere moving near a right dihedral corner made by a stationary and a tangentially sliding wall is considered. Using the superposition principle, the arbitrary motion of the sphere is decomposed into simple elementary motions. Fully-resolved spectral-element simulations are carried out in the frame of reference translating and rotating with the particle such that the velocity on the particle’s surface vanishes. Forces and torques on the sphere are obtained as functions of the particle position near the corner. The data obtained are fitted by closed-form expressions which take into account symmetries of the problem, exact solutions, and asymptotic solutions from lubrication theory. The correlations obtained can easily be implemented in larger-scale one-way-coupled particulate-flow simulations to correct the particle motion near dihedral corners where mere point-particle models break down.