Lubricating motion of a sphere towards a thin porous slab with Saffman slip condition

Abstract

Near-contact hydrodynamic interactions between a solid sphere and a plane porous slab are investigated in the framework of lubrication theory. The size of pores in the slab is small compared with the slab thickness so that the Darcy law holds there. The slab is thin: that is, its thickness is small compared with the sphere radius. The considered problem involves a sphere translating above the slab together with a permeation flow across the slab and a uniform pressure below. The pressure is continuous across both slab interfaces and the Saffman slip condition applies on its upper interface. An extended Reynolds-like equation is derived for the pressure in the gap between the sphere and the slab. This equation is solved numerically and the drag force on the sphere is calculated therefrom for a wide range of values of the slab interface slip length and of the permeability parameter $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}=24k^{\ast }R/(e\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}^{2})$, where $k^{\ast }$ is the permeability, $e$ is the porous slab thickness, $R$ is the sphere radius and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}$ is the gap. Moreover, asymptotics expansions for the pressure and drag are derived for high and low $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$. These expansions, which agree with the numerics, are also handy formulae for practical use. All results match with those of other authors in particular cases. The settling trajectory of a sphere towards a porous slab in a fluid at rest is calculated from these results and, as expected, the time for reaching the slab decays for increasing slab permeability and upper interface slip length.