Settling of an asymmetric dumbbell in a quiescent fluid

Abstract

We compute the hydrodynamic torque on a dumbbell (two spheres linked by a massless rigid rod) settling in a quiescent fluid at small but finite Reynolds number. The spheres have the same mass densities but different sizes. When the sizes are quite different the dumbbell settles vertically, aligned with the direction of gravity, the largest sphere first. But when the size difference is sufficiently small then its steady-state angle is determined by a competition between the size difference and the Reynolds number. When the sizes of the spheres are exactly equal then fluid inertia causes the dumbbell to settle in a horizontal orientation.

11 pages, 1 figure, as published

References in corpus (4)

• Shape-dependence of particle rotation in isotropic turbulence
• Rotation of a spheroid in a simple shear at small Reynolds number
• Preferential sampling and small-scale clustering of gyrotactic microswimmers in turbulence
• Numerical analysis of the angular motion of a neutrally buoyant spheroid in shear flow at small Reynolds numbers

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