Interaction of a spherical particle with a confined liquid film

Abstract

Paper presented to the 10th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Florida, 14-16 July 2014.

This paper reports on the collision interaction between a confined liquid film (water) and an impacting hydrophilic glass particle of different diameters (1.1-2mm) and impact velocities (0.2-1 m/s). Depending on the impact Weber number (1.4-23.9) of the particles either complete capture of the particle inside the film or complete penetration through the film were observed. In the latter case a certain amount of liquid mass was found to adhere to the particle surface which again depended on the impact Weber number. A criterion was developed based on the energy balance approach to demarcate between these two regimes. Also, an analytical model was proposed to approximately determine the liquid mass attached to the particle. Computationally, a three dimensional CFD model was developed using the VOF approach and dynamic meshing technique which was found to be in good agreement with the experimentally observed dynamics in these two regimes.