Study of gravitational sedimentation of flexible, permeable circular and planktonic particle applying the immersed boundary method

Abstract

The gravitational settling of a flexible, permeable circular and planktonic particle drenched in a fluid which is assumed to be Newtonian and incompressible along with being viscous was studied. A mathematical formulation and numerical simulations of the studied problem were done by applying the Immersed Boundary Method (IBM) in a two-dimensional fluid domain. Parametric studies were done for analyzing the impact of varying flexibilities and permeabilities with reference to settling velocity (terminal velocity) and shape deformation of the particle. The terminal velocity and permeability of the particle are directly proportional. It was observed that for fixed permeability, the terminal velocity increases when increasing the flexibility of the particle.