Motion of a two-dimensional neutrally buoyant circular particle in two-sided lid-driven cavity flow with thermal convection

Abstract

Understanding the interaction between a cold particle and confined fluid flow is of practical importance in many industrial applications. In this work, the motion of a two-dimensional circular neutrally buoyant particle in thermal flows in the two-sided lid-driven cavity has been numerically investigated by the lattice Boltzmann model with immersed boundary method. We examined the effects of Grashof number (Gr) and Reynolds number (Re) of cavity on the motion of particle in the range of 104 ≤ Gr ≤ 107 and 500 ≤ Re ≤ 3000. It is found that the motion of the cold particle in the cavity flow manifests four different modes, driven by the competition between buoyancy-driven natural convection and lid-driven forced convection. With the increase in Gr or the decrease in Re, the motion of the cold particle would evolve from modes I to IV. We further obtained the diagram of motion modes of the cold particle with regard to Gr and Re. And a power law correlation that relates the critical Gr to Re of the cavity is proposed and capable of well predicting the transition of particle motion modes.