Effect of drag models on the accumulation of heavy particles in circular bounded vortex flow

In this paper, a combination scheme of a discrete element method and an immersed boundary method has been developed and used to investigate the effect of three well-known drag models (Gidaspow, Di Felice and EHKL) on the accumulation of heavy particles in a circular bounded vortex flow. The inter-particle collisions are resolved by a hard-sphere model. For a single particle, results show that the particle will spiral into an accumulation point located near the stagnation point of the flow field for all the drag models. The rate at which a particle approaches towards the accumulation point is fastest for EHKL model and slowest for Di Felice model. However, for a group of particles, there no exists a stable accumulation point owing to the strong inter-phase interactions. Instead most particles are expelled from the circular domain and accumulate on the confining wall for all the drag models. The percentage of accumulated particles on the wall is largest for Di Felice model.