Extension of moving particle simulation by introducing rotational degrees of freedom for dilute fiber suspensions

We develop a novel Moving Particle Simulation (MPS) method to reproduce the motion of fibers floating in sheared liquids accurately. In conventional MPS schemes, if a fiber suspended in a liquid is represented by a one-dimensional array of MPS particles, it is entirely aligned to the flow direction due to the lack of shear stress difference between fiber–liquid interfaces. To address this problem, we employ the micropolar fluid model to introduce rotational degrees of freedom into the MPS particles. The translational motion of liquid and solid particles and the rotation of solid particles are calculated with the explicit MPS algorithm. The fiber is modeled as an array of micropolar fluid particles bonded with stretching, bending and torsional potentials. The motion of a single rigid fiber is simulated in a three-dimensional shear flow generated between two moving solid walls. We show that the proposed method is capable of reproducing the fiber motion predicted by Jeffery's theory which is different from the conventional MPS simulations.