COMSOL HOMEWORK REPORT

Report date

Oct 27, 2016

SUBMITTED BY
RISHABH JAIN
1501708
1

Contents
1

Global Definitions ..................................................................................................................................... 3

1.1

Parameters ............................................................................................................................................................................... 3

1.2

Variables .................................................................................................................................................................................... 3

Component ................................................................................................................................................ 4
2.1

Geometry .................................................................................................................................................................................. 4

2.2

Laminar Flow ........................................................................................................................................................................... 5

Study ........................................................................................................................................................... 7
3.1

Stationary .................................................................................................................................................................................. 7
Results ........................................................................................................................................................ 8

1 Global Definitions
1.1 PARAMETERS
PARAMETERS
Name

Expression

Value

Description

phid

0.2

0.2

Volume fraction of particles

phidm

0.7

0.7

Particle volume fraction at maximum packing

etai

2.1

2.1

Intrinsic Viscosity

1.2 VARIABLES
Variables 1
SELECTION
Geometric entity level

Entire model

Name

Expression

Unit

Description

etas

0.0036[Pa/s]

Pa/s

Solvent Viscosity

tau_y

38*(phid^2.7)[Pa]

Pa

Yield stress

1510*(phid^3.5)

Fitting Parameter (Herschel-Bulkley)

.03*(phid^(-1.3))

Fitting Parameter (Herschel-Bulkley)

kappa

2100*(phid^3.7)

Fitting Parameter (Roberts)

nu

0.010*(phid^(-1.8))

Fitting Parameter (Roberts)

eta_inf

etas*(1 - (phid/phidm))^(-etai*phidm)

Pa/s

Finite viscosity at high shear rates

2 Component
2.1 GEOMETRY

Geometry
UNITS
Length unit

Angular unit

deg

GEOMETRY STATISTICS
Description

Value

Space dimension

Number of domains

Number of boundaries

Number of edges

12

Number of vertices

8
4

Block
SIZE AND SHAPE
Description

Value

Width

100

Depth

200

Height

100

2.2 LAMINAR FLOW

EQUATIONS

SETTINGS
Description

Value

Discretization of fluids

P1 + P1

Value type when using splitting of complex variables

{Real, Real, Real, Real, Real, Real, Real, Real, Real,

Real, Real}

Neglect inertial term (Stokes flow)

Off

Compressibility

Compressible flow (Ma<0.3)

Turbulence model type

None

Enable porous media domains

Off

Include gravity

Off

Reference temperature

293.15[K]

Reference pressure level

1[atm]

Streamline diffusion

On

Crosswind diffusion

On

Isotropic diffusion

Off

Use pseudo time stepping for stationary equation

form

Off

Fluid Properties
Description

Value

Density

1000

Dynamic viscosity

eta_inf + (kappa*spf.sr^(nu - 1))

Wall
Description

Value

Boundary condition

No slip

Inlet
Description

Value

Boundary condition

Pressure

Pressure (Pa)

Umax(mm/s)

100

126

172

10

247

30

422

100

The input pressure was guessed to achieve various maximum velocities ranging from 1mm/s to 100mm/s.

Outlet
Description

Value

Boundary condition

Pressure

Pressure

3 Study
COMPUTATION INFORMATION
CPU

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 4 cores

Operating system

Windows 7

3.1 STATIONARY
STUDY SETTINGS
Description

Value

Include geometric nonlinearity

Off

PHYSICS AND VARIABLES SELECTION

Physics interface

Discretization

Laminar Flow (spf)

physics

Number of iterations was adjusted to 1000 to increase the convergence of the solution.

4 Results
(a)

Velocity Profile
Umax 1 mm/s

Umax 3 mm/s

Umax 10 mm/s

Umax 30 mm/s

Umax 100 mm/s

10

(b)

Reynolds Numbers and Peclet Numbers

Reynolds number is defined as the ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces and consequently quantifies
the relative importance of these two types of forces for given flow conditions. With increase in maximum
velocity Reynolds number increases (as shown in table 1), thus effect of viscous forces decreases with
increase in input pressure or maximum velocity. Peclet number is defined as the ratio of advective
transport rate to the diffusive transport rate. Peclet number for various maximum velocity was
considerably large of the order of 1011-108 which suggests that diffusion by momentum is significantly
small. But it increase with increase in input pressure or maximum velocity as observed from the increasing
trend of Peclet number in table 1.

1. Reynolds Number
EXPRESSIONS
Expression

Unit

(1000*spf.U*100*(10^-06))/(eta_inf+(kappa*spf.sr^(nu-1)))

Description
Reynolds Number

OUTPUT
Evaluated in

Table 1

2. Peclet Number
Temperature was assumed to be 300 K
EXPRESSIONS
Expression

Unit

(eta_inf+(kappa*spf.sr^(nu-1)))*6*3.14*etas*1e-6/(1000*(1.38e-23)*300)
OUTPUT
Evaluated in

Table 1

Table 1
Umax(mm/s)

Reynolds Number

Peclet Number

1.4057E-4

1.1872E11

9.3589E-4

3.8154E10

10

0.0076435

1.0543E10

30

0.047286

2.9057E9

100

0.30328

5.4408E8

11

Description
Peclet Number

(c)

Effect of decreasing volume fraction on velocity profile for Umax 30 mm/s

The flow profiles of colloidal suspension at Umax 30mm/s for =0.2, 0.17 are shown below. The change in
the shape of velocity profile with change in was observed. With decrease in , transition from plug flow
behavior to fluid like behavior occurs as observed in the velocity profiles given below. This transition
occurs when the shear stress within the micro channel exceeds the measured yield stress of the colloidal
gel.

At =0.2

At =0.17
12

(d)

Effect of changing the height on the shape of velocity profile for Umax
30mm/s
Effect of height of the channel on the shape of velocity profile was examined for Umax
30mm/s. With increase in height of the channel transition from plug flow behavior to fluid like
behavior was observed. Increase in height subsequently leads to increase in the flow rate. At
low height or flow rate, the measured flow profile is flat across a larger portion of the channel
which indicates plug flow.

At height=30m

At height=50m

13

At height=100m

At height=200m

14

At height=300m

Height(m)

Umax(mm/s)

Reynolds Number

Peclet Number

30

6.4013E-4

1.0992E-4

5.1237E10

50

0.0050628

0.0031539

1.0641E10

100

0.030107

0.047286

2.9057E9

200

0.070497

0.15638

8.8517E8

300

0.087539

0.21122

7.9250E8

15

(e)

Effect of changing the width on the shape of velocity profile for Umax
30mm/s
Effect of changing width of the channel on the shape of velocity profile was examined for Umax
30mm/s. With increase in width of the channel transition from plug flow behavior to fluid like
behavior was observed. Increase in width subsequently leads to increase in the flow rate. At
lower width or flow rate, the measured flow profile is flat across a larger portion of the
channel which indicates plug flow.

At width=30m

16

At width=50m

At width=100m

At width=200m

17

At width=300m

18