Numerical simulation of thermal convection in dispersed systems accounting for the dispersed phase’s sedimentation process

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical study of thermal convection in a gravitational field. It compares the sedimentation processes of solid spherical particles and water droplets in a hydrocarbon medium by employing different approaches to calculate sedimentation velocity: Stokes' law and the Hadamard-Rybczynski formula. Investigations are conducted on the gravitational sedimentation of the dispersed phase for varying initial concentrations and particle/droplet radii. The densities of the droplets and particles are assumed to be identical. The results demonstrate that the flow profiles and sedimentation dynamics differ significantly between droplets and particles. This disparity becomes more pronounced with increasing size of the dispersed phase. In the case of emulsion dynamics, the differences also depend on the viscosity ratio between the dispersed phase and the dispersion medium.