Wall effects on a single spherical particle moving through a power-law fluid

Abstract

The steady motion of solid spheres through a power-law fluid contained in a cylindrical tube has been solved numerically using a finite element method by means of the COMSOL software package for the steady non-Newtonian flows. From the resulting stress fields, the drag force on the sphere, drag coefficient, drag coefficient corrective factor, and wall correction factor have been evaluated in dependence on the fluid power law index and the sphere-to-tube diameter ratio. The results of numerical computation are in very good agreement with previous theoretical and experimental literature data, which documents suitability of the computational method used.