Lift on a sphere moving near a wall in a parabolic flow

The lift on a solid sphere moving along a wall in a parabolic shear flow is obtained as a regular perturbation problem for low Reynolds number when the sphere is in the inner region of expansion. Comprehensive results are given for the 10 terms of the lift, which involve the sphere translation and rotation, the linear and quadratic parts of the shear flow and all binary couplings. Based on very accurate earlier results of a creeping flow in bispherical coordinates, precise results for these lift terms are obtained for a large range of sphere-to-wall distances, including the lubrication region for sphere-to-wall gaps down to 0.01 of a sphere radius. Fitting formulae are also provided in view of applications. The migration velocity of an inertialess spherical particle is given explicitly, for a non-rotating sphere with a prescribed translation velocity and for a freely moving sphere in a parabolic shear flow. Values of the lift and migration velocity are in good agreement with earlier results whenever available.