Effects of large particles in pipe flow at low and moderate Reynolds numbers

The presence of solid particles in a Newtonian liquid flow will affect the properties of the flow. For small particles these effects are fairly well understood. However, the behaviour of liquids laden with large particles are less well understood and even more so if the carrier liquid is a non-Newtonian fluid. In the present study we consider large particles of spherical shape. By large is here meant particles that are of the same size as the large scale length scales of the flow and larger. We are considering how particles volume fraction affects parameters such as pressure drop and velocity distribution in the pipe flow. The simulations are performed using a finite difference based in-house software and the particles are represented using an virtual boundary method. The size of the spherical particles is about 1/6 of the pipe diameter and the volume fraction is varied between 5
and 20%. The fluid is either Newtonian or shear thinning modelled using a power law expression.