Author Description

The vibration-induced motion of a solid particle in a liquid-filled cell has been investigated to better understand the vibration effects on fluid-particle systems in order to improve material processing methods such as protein crystal growth in space and on ground.The results from this work are expected to improve our understanding of vibration-induced motion of solid particles in liquid-filled containers. Studying the vibration effects on particle motion in microgravity and on ground will increase the success rate of future material processing experiments.Experiments have been performed on ground by suspending a spherical particle with a thin wire in a rectangular cell filled with liquids of different viscosities, and subjecting the fluid cell to single-frequency horizontal vibrations. The vibration-induced particle motion was measured for different vibration conditions and analyzed theoretically. The effects of particle density, wire length and fluid viscosity on the particle motion were quantitatively investigated. The particle was also placed at different positions inside the cell to determine the effect of the proximity of the cell wall.Finally, the effect of an attraction force between the particle and nearest cell wall in an inviscid fluid cell has been detected at sufficiently high frequencies. A clear drift of the mean particle position towards the nearest wall due to the attraction force has been experimentally observed and analytically verified.An inviscid fluid model was developed for a spherical particle suspended by a thin wire in a water-filled cell. Analytical expressions for particle amplitudes were derived for both infinite and semi-infinite size cells, and for a particle oscillating normal or parallel to the nearest cell wall. Both the model and experimental data showed that the particle amplitude is linearly proportional to the cell amplitude, greater amplitudes are obtained for heavier particles, and there exists a resonance frequency at which the particle amplitude becomes extremely large. Further experiments conducted with a cell filled with viscous fluids ranging from 58.0 to 945 cP in viscosity showed disappearance of the resonance phenomenon in highly viscous fluids. A viscous model was also derived to predict the fluid viscosity effect on the particle amplitude and resonance phenomenon.