Drag, lift and torque coefficients for ellipsoidal particles: From low to moderate particle Reynolds numbers

An accurate prediction of the translational and rotational motion of ellipsoidal particles can be only given if a complete set of correlations of the drag, lift and pitching torque coefficients is known. The present study is thus devoted to the assessment of the available correlations in the literature through a comparison with numerical results of the forces acting on a particle given by a full body-fitted direct numerical simulation (DNS) in the case of a uniform flow, for three different ellipsoidal particles, and for Reynolds number ranging from 0.1 to 290. The comparison between the computed force (or hydrodynamic coefficients) and the literature correlations shows clearly that certain precautions must be taken. The mean deviation of the most accurate correlation considered in the present study from our full DNS results can be of the order of 20% for the drag coefficient. For the lift and pitching torque coefficients, the deviations can increase up to roughly 25%. This comparison shows that further works are definitively necessary to develop a complete set of correlations for ellipsoidal particles outside Stokes regime. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.