Direct numerical simulations of rigid body dispersions. I. Mobility/Friction tensors of assemblies of spheres

TL;DR

This paper introduces an improved Smoothed Profile method for simulating rigid body dispersions, extending its applicability beyond spheres and validating it through detailed friction and mobility tensor calculations.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel formulation of the Smoothed Profile method that enables simulations of arbitrary rigid bodies, expanding the scope of previous spherical-only implementations.

Findings

Validated the method by computing friction/mobility tensors for various geometries.

Compared results with accurate Stokes-Equation solutions, confirming accuracy.

Demonstrated the method's versatility for different rigid body shapes.

Abstract

An improved formulation of the Smoothed Profile method is introduced to perform direct numerical simulations of arbitrary rigid body dispersions in a Newtonian host solvent. Previous implementations of the method were restricted to spherical particles, severely limiting the types of systems that could be studied. The validity of the method is carefully examined by computing the friction/mobility tensors for a wide variety of geometries and comparing them to reference values obtained from accurate solutions to the Stokes-Equation.