Random adhesive loose packings of micron-sized particles under a uniform flow field

The effects of hydrodynamic interactions on random adhesive loose packings of monodisperse spherical micro particles are investigated via a two-way coupled CFD-DEM approach. It is found out that the packing fraction and coordination number do not follow the regression of the adhesion number, which was proposed recently to well characterize the bulk properties of adhesive packings. Based on the balance between particle adhesion and fluid drag force, we propose a modified fluid adhesion number, Ad(f), which successfully normalizes the packing fraction and coordination number. Besides, the pressure drop through the packed bed shows a critical behavior, which validates the jamming threshold of fine powders, but occurs at a fixed packing fraction of Phi approximate to 0.22 under the present protocol. The normalized permeability of the packed bed for different parameters is analyzed, which is in good agreement with the derivation of Kozeny-Carman equation. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.