Study of the behavior of solid particle in a lid-driven cavity flow

This study predicts the fluid flow and solid particle dynamics within a three dimensional lid-driven cavity with the Eulerian-Lagrangian (E-L) approach. The first step was to solve the fluid phase without any solid particle inside the domain. The Reynolds number up to 1,000 was defined and that implies a laminar flow inside the cavity. A grid refinement study showed the resolution of 50×50×50 was good enough to predict the velocity field. The second step was to apply the hard-sphere model to predict the solid particle dynamics inside the previous solution of fluid flow. Therefore, the first study case was the validation of the fluid flow within the lid-driven cavity. The second case was to validate a single particle motion inside the domain. The third case was to verify the influence of the particle diameter in the particle trajectory. The fourth case was to verify the influence of the ratio of particle density and fluid density in the particle motion. Finally, the fifth case was to extend the model for a cloud with 5,000 particles with same density and diameter. Despite some issues, the Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) code with E-L approach has achieved a good prediction comparing with literature outcomes. When the particle diameter decreases, the particle tends to remain at central vortex of lid-driven cavity. When the particle density increases the importance of gravity forces over the drag forces.