Analysis using Immersed Boundary Method and Discrete Element Method reveals how rheology impacts transport models in various applications.
Suspension flows in industrial processes, such as transportation and sedimentation, are strongly influenced by fluid-particle interactions. The presence of different-sized particles in mineral slurry flows alters suspension rheology and shear response, leading to complex flow behaviour, including size-induced segregation. This study employs a fully-resolved CFD-DEM framework, integrating the Immersed Boundary Method (IBM) with the Discrete Element Method (DEM), to investigate suspension flows with varying particle sizes and non-Newtonian rheology. The developed model captures intricate particle-fluid interactions, sedimentation dynamics, and shear-induced segregation, which are critical for applications such as tailings transport and thickener performance optimization. The results provide insights into the influence of rheology on settling behaviour and highlight the significance of particle size segregation in determining flow characteristics during sedimentation/transportation. These findings contribute to the development of improved drag correlations and transport models for high-concentration suspensions in industrial applications.
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Fazli et al. (2025) studied this question.
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