UC Berkeley

In several industrial and manufacturing processes, particle additives are placed into fluid flows to enhance overall properties or process parameters when the base fluid may not be sufficient. We refer to these fluids as particle-laden, and we find the use of them ubiquitous. As such, it is an important area of study. The work herein will propose a modeling methodology for such systems. In order to account for particles in the flow, a Discrete Element Method (DEM) framework is implemented. To resolve the fluid flow, a Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) model is employed. The LBM is able to account for porous media in a simple manner, thus proving useful for our work.

Applications studied within this work are non-invasive magnetic pipe healing, where particles are injected into a flow and guided to a damage site via external magnetic fields. Also, infiltration into permeable porous media for ceramic matrix composites (CMC's) is covered. Variance based approaches are used to ascertain the input parameters the models are most sensitive to. Finally, we introduce frameworks for other particle-fluid systems such as nozzle wear, biological channel growth, and electrically-aided pumping.