Analytical study of unsteady sedimentation analysis of spherical particle in Newtonian fluid media

Abstract

Unsteady settling behavior of solid spherical particles falling in water as a Newtonian fluid is investigated in this research. Least square method (LSM), Galerkin method, LSM-Padé, and numerical model are applied to analyze the characteristics of the particles motion. The influence of physical parameters on terminal velocity is discussed and it is showed that LSM and Galerkin method are efficient techniques for solving the governing equation. Among these methods, LSM-Padé demonstrates the best agreement with numerical results. The novelty of this work is to introduce new analytical methods for solving the non-linear equation of sedimentation applicable in many industrial and chemical applications.