Virtual mass and drag in two-phase flow

Abstract

We study virtual mass and drag effects in a fluid suspension consisting of spherical particles immersed in an incompressible, nearly inviscid fluid. We derive average equations of motion for the fluid phase and the particle phase by the method of ensemble averaging. We show that the virtual mass and drag coefficients may be expressed exactly in terms of the dielectric constant of a corresponding dielectric suspension with the same distribution of particles. We make numerical predictions for the case of an equilibrium distribution of hard spheres.