CHAPTER 2

Single Particles in a Fluid

MOTION OF SOLID PARTICLES IN A FLUID

The drag force resisting very slow steady relative motion (creeping motion) between a rigid sphere of
diameter x and a fluid of infinite extent, of viscosity is composed of two components (Stokes, 1851):

a pressure drag force; Fp = (2.1)

a shear stress drag force; Fs = 2 (2.2)
Total drag force resisting motion, FD = 3 (2.3)

where U is the relative velocity.

This is known as Stokes law. Experimentally, Stokes law is found to hold almost exactly for single particle
Reynolds number, Rep 0.1; within 9% for Rep 0.3; within 3% for Rep 0.5 and within 9% for Rep
1.0; where the single particle Reynolds number is defined in Equation (2.4).

Single particle Reynolds number; Rep = / (2.4)

A drag coefficient; CD is defined as CD = (2.5)
2
where R is the force per unit projected area of the particle.

Figure 2.1 shows Four regions are identified: the Stokes law region; the Newtons law region in
which drag coefficient is independent of Reynolds number; an intermediate region between the Stokes
and Newton regions; and the boundary layer separation region.

Thus, for a sphere:

and, Stokes law, in terms of this drag coefficient, becomes:

Equation (2.8) is that of Haider and Levenspiel (1989), which is claimed to fit the data with a root mean
square deviation of 0.024

PARTICLES FALLING UNDER GRAVITY THROUGH A FLUID

The relative motion under gravity of particles in a fluid is of particular interest. In general, the forces of
buoyancy, drag and gravity act on the particle:

gravity buoyancy - drag = acceleration force (2.9)

A particle falling from rest in a fluid will initially experience a high acceleration as the shear stress drag,
which increases with relative velocity, will be small. As the particle accelerates the drag force increases,
causing the acceleration to reduce. Eventually a force balance is achieved when the acceleration is zero
and a maximum or terminal relative velocity is reached. This is known as the single particle terminal
velocity.

For a spherical particle, Equation (2.9) becomes

(2.10)

Combining Equation (2.10) with Equation (2.5):

(2.11)
where UT is the single particle terminal velocity.
Equation (2.11) gives the following expression for the drag coefficient under terminal velocity conditions:
 (2.12)
Thus in the Stokes law region, with CD = 24/ Rep; the single particle terminal velocity is given by:

(2.13)

Note that in the Stokes law region the terminal velocity is proportional to the square of the particle
diameter.

In the Newtons law region, with CD = 0:44, the terminal velocity is given by:

(2.14)

Note that in this region the terminal velocity is independent of the fluid viscosity and proportional to the
square root of the particle diameter.

Generally, when calculating the terminal velocity for a given particle or the particle diameter for a given
velocity, it is not known which region of operation is relevant. One way around this is to formulate the
dimensionless groups, CD Rep2 and CD=Rep :

To calculate UT, for a given size x. Calculate the group

(2.15)

which is independent of UT
4
(Note that CD Rep2 = 3 , where Ar is the Archimedes number.) For given particle and fluid properties,
CDRep2 is a constant and will therefore produce a straight line of slope -2 if plotted on the logarithmic
coordinates (log CD versus log Rep) of the standard drag curve. The intersection of this straight line with
the drag curve gives the value of Rep and hence UT (Figure 2.2).

To calculate size x, for a given UT. Calculate the group

(2.16)

which is independent of particle size x.

For a given terminal velocity, particle density and fluid properties, CD=Rep is constant and will produce a
straight line of slope 1 if plotted on the logarithmic coordinates (log CD versus log Rep) of the standard
drag curve. The intersection of this straight line with the drag curve gives the value of Rep and hence, x.

NON-SPHERICAL PARTICLES

The effect of shape of non-spherical particles on their drag coefficient has proved difficult to define. This
is probably due to the difficulty in describing particle shape for irregular particles. One simple approach is
to describe the shape of a particle in terms of its sphericity, the ratio of the surface area of a sphere of
volume equal to that of the particle to the surface area of the particle.

For example, a cube of side one unit has a volume of 1 (cubic units) and a surface area of 6 (square units).
A sphere of the same volume has a diameter, XV of 1.24 units. The surface area of a sphere of diameter
1.24 units is 4.836 units. The sphericity of a cube is therefore 0.806 (=4.836/6).

Shape affects drag coefficient far more in the intermediate and Newtons law regions than in the Stokes
law region. It is interesting to note that in the Stokes law region particles fall with their longest surface
nearly parallel to the direction of motion, whereas, in the Newtons law region particles present their
maximum area to the oncoming fluid.

For non-spherical particles the particle Reynolds number is based on the equal volume sphere diameter,
i.e. the diameter of the sphere having the same volume as that of the particle. Figure 2.3 (after Brown et
al., 1950) shows drag curves for particles of different sphericities. This covers regular and irregular
particles. The plot should be used with caution, since sphericity on its own may not be sufficient in some
cases to describe the shape for all types of particles.
EFFECT OF BOUNDARIES ON TERMINAL VELOCITY

When a particle is falling through a fluid in the presence of a solid boundary the terminal velocity reached
by the particle is less than that for an infinite fluid. In practice, this is really only relevant to the falling
sphere method of measuring liquid viscosity, which is restricted to the Stokes region. In the case of a
particle falling along the axis of a vertical pipe this is described by a wall factor, fw, the ratio of the
velocity in the pipe, UD to the velocity in an infinite fluid, U1. The correlation of Francis (1933) for fw is
given in Equation (2.17).

(2.17)
PROBLEMS:

1. Calculate the upper limit of particle diameter xmax as a function of particle density
for gravity sedimentation in the Stokes law regime. Plot the results as xmax versus over the
range 0 8000 /3 for settling in water and in air at ambient . Assume that the particles
are spherical and that Stokes law holds for Rep 0.3.

2. A sphere of diameter 10 mm and density 7700 kg/m3 falls under gravity at terminal
conditions through a liquid of density 900 kg/m3 in a tube of diameter 12 mm. The measured
terminal velocity of the particle is 1.6mm/s. Calculate the viscosity of the fluid. Verify that Stokes
law applies.

3. A sphere of density 2500 kg/m3 falls freely under gravity in a fluid of density 700 kg/m3
and viscosity 0.5x 10-3 Pa s. Given that the terminal velocity of the sphere is 0.15m/s,
calculate its diameter. What would be the edge length of a cube of the same material falling in the
same fluid at the same terminal velocity?

4. A particle of equivalent volume diameter 0.5 mm, density 2000 kg/m3 and sphericity 0.6
falls freely under gravity in a fluid of density 1.6 kg/m3 and viscosity 2 x 10-5 Pa s.
Estimate the terminal velocity reached by the particle.