Sedimentation of a single particle between two parallel walls

The sedimentation of a single circular particle between two parallel walls was studied by means of direct numerical simulation (DNS) and experiment. The improved implementation of distributed Lagrange multiplier/fictitious domain method used in our DNS is a promising new way for simulation of particulate flows. The settling behaviors of the particle are presented ranging in Reynolds number from 0 to about 700, which showed that our results for low Reynolds numbers agreed well with that reported before. Nevertheless, for higher Reynolds numbers our results were different from theirs. The long-term mean equilibrium positions in our results were all on the centerline, but not at off-center position as reported before. In order to validate our simulation, experiments were also conducted. The results showed that the sedimenting behavior simulated in this paper agreed well with our experiment result.