Particle Migration Rates in a Couette Apparatus

Abstract

ABSTRACTBulk migration of particles towards regions of lower shear occurs in suspensions of neutrally buoyant spheres in Newtonian fluids undergoing creeping flow in the annular region between two rotating, coaxial cylinders (a wide-gap Couette). For a monomodal suspension of spheres in a viscous fluid, dimensional analysis indicates that the rate of migration at a given concentration should scale with the square of the sphere radius. However, a previous experimental study [12] showed that the rate of migration of spherical particles at 50% volume concentration actually scaled with the sphere radius to approximately the 2.9 power. In the current study, a series of experiments is performed to extend the previous study to two new concentrations, namely, 35% and 42.5%. The new study indicates that the power scaling decreases with concentration.