Wall-induced translation of a rotating particle in viscoelastic fluid

TL;DR

This study investigates how a rotating particle's translation near a wall in viscoelastic fluids is affected by fluid properties, revealing a non-monotonic speed change due to viscoelasticity through numerical simulations.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the wall-induced translation behavior of rotating particles in viscoelastic fluids, contrasting with shear-thinning fluid behavior, using advanced numerical modeling.

Findings

Particle speed first increases then decreases with viscoelasticity.

Behavior differs from shear-thinning fluids as reported previously.

Numerical simulations based on Navier-Stokes and Oldroyd-B models support findings.

Abstract

Shear-thinning and viscoelasticity are two non-Newtonian fluid properties widely existing in biological fluids. In this study, we found that the translation motion of a rotating particle near a wall speed up firstly, and then slows down with enhancement of fluid viscoelasticity, which is different from the behavior reported in shear thinning fluid (Chen et al. J. Fluid Mech. 2021, 927). Our research is carried out by numerical simulation of Navier-Stokes equations combined with Oldroyd-B constitutive model. This work is expected to be helpful to understand the movement of a rotating sphere near a wall in complex fluids comprehensively.