On the Drag Coefficient Universality of a Rough Grain in Creeping Flow

TL;DR

This study numerically investigates how grain shape irregularity and orientation affect drag in creeping flows, revealing universal patterns and a new power law linking drag coefficients to surface roughness and orientation.

Contribution

It introduces a universal power law relating drag coefficients to a new area-related number, accounting for roughness and orientation, advancing understanding of fluid-particle interactions.

Findings

Drag reduction increases with surface roughness and fractal dimension.

Drag coefficients and components follow Weibull distributions universally.

A new power law links drag to surface area and orientation, mainly influenced by roughness.

Abstract

Controversy exists regarding whether grain morphology reduces or enhances the drag of a single grain in creeping flows; further complication occurs when orientation dependence for aspherical grains comes into play. To quantify influences of shape irregularity and orientation, this study numerically investigates the drag in creeping flows for fractally rough grains depicted by Spherical Harmonics. As the grain surface becomes more angular with increasing relative roughness and fractal dimension, a stronger drag reduction is observed; this observed morphology-dependent reduction indicates Stokes formula is insufficient. The rotational dependence helps to explain the paradox wherein drag enhancement is always encountered insettling-grain experiments popular in geophysics. For the drag of a given rough grain at various orientations, extracted distributions of the overall drag, and its two components, i.e., skin friction and pressure drag, universally adhere to the Weibull patterns. Moreover, we identify a universal power law between drag coefficients and a newly proposed area-related number, sufficiently taking into consideration both grain roughness by surface area and orientational dependence by projected area perpendicular to the flow direction. This law is primarily controlled by relative roughness, with less sensitivity to fractal dimension. The determined expression enables precise estimation of fluid-particle interactions in upscaling simulations.