Drag and Lift Forces Acting on a Sphere in Shear Flow of Power-Law Fluid

Laminar flow of a power-law fluid over a sphere is considered for unbounded shear flow. The Navier–Stokes equations with power-law viscosity are solved numerically using an in-house developed CFD package. Vorticities structures downstream of particle are suppressed for powerlaw fluid. The shear rate influence on drag force is negligible for power index close to unit, and the drag force appreciably decreases with falling power index. For small Reynolds numbers, the lift force coefficient monotonically decreases against the power index and exhibits an opposite behavior for moderate values of Reynolds numbers. The results of the parametric studies are used to derive correlations for the drag force and to detect the hydrodynamic differences from uniform flow. The investigation parameters varied within the following ranges: power-law index 0.3 ≤ n ≤ 1, Reynolds number 0 < Re ≤ 150, and dimensionless shear rate 0.05 ≤ s ≤ 0.4.