https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-021-00144-4
Regular Article - Flowing Matter
A lattice Boltzmann study of particle settling in a fluctuating multicomponent fluid under confinement
1
Department of Physics and J.M. Burgerscentrum, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600, Eindhoven, MB, The Netherlands
2
Department of Physics & INFN, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Via della Ricerca Scientifica 1, 00133, Rome, Italy
3
Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences, Division of Fluid Dynamics, Chalmers University of Technology, 41296, Göteborg, Sweden
4
Departments of Physics and of Mathematics and Computer Science and J.M. Burgerscentrum, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600, Eindhoven, MB, The Netherlands
5
Istituto per le Applicazioni del Calcolo CNR, Via dei Taurini 19, 00185, Rome, Italy
Received:
5
August
2021
Accepted:
30
October
2021
Published online:
25
November
2021
We present mesoscale numerical simulations based on the coupling of the fluctuating lattice Boltzmann method for multicomponent systems with a wetted finite-size particle model. This newly coupled methodologies are used to study the motion of a spherical particle driven by a constant body force in a confined channel with a fixed square cross section. The channel is filled with a mixture of two liquids under the effect of thermal fluctuations. After some validations steps in the absence of fluctuations, we study the fluctuations in the particle’s velocity at changing thermal energy, applied force, particle size, and particle wettability. The importance of fluctuations with respect to the mean settling velocity is quantitatively assessed, especially in comparison with unconfined situations. Results show that the expected effects of confinement are very well captured by the numerical simulations, wherein the confinement strongly enhances the importance of velocity fluctuations, which can be one order of magnitude larger than what expected in unconfined domains. The observed findings underscore the versatility of the proposed methodology in highlighting the effects of confinement on the motion of particles in the presence of thermal fluctuations.
© The Author(s) 2021
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