Dynamic Behavior of an Oil Droplet Adhered to the Wall Surface in a Channel Flow by the Lattice Boltzmann Method

Abstract

The Lattice Boltzmann Method is used to simulate the dynamics of droplet deformation in a channel flow under various conditions. The droplet behavior has been investigated under transient conditions. For cases where the droplet remains attached to the surface, the shape deformation of the droplet during crawling is captured. It has been shown that there is a limiting value for the droplet volume beyond which the critical shear rate remains almost constant and does not demonstrate much correlation with the size of the droplet. The predicted shapes of the droplet at various stages of deformation in the course of the flow by the current LBM code demonstrates more resemblance to the reported experiments than those obtained by a traditional CFD code. The effect of the droplet's initial volume and Reynolds number on the detachment and crawling processes are also investigated. The results are presented at various time steps to better demonstrate the droplet separation. Under the flow conditions investigated, wherever the Aniline droplet detaches, the entire droplet separates from the surface. For an Isoquinoline droplet however, once the main body is detached, a small part of the droplet remains attached to the surface in flows with low Reynolds numbers.