PARTICULATE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

2016, VOL. 34, NO. 4, 381–391

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02726351.2015.1089348

Simulation of the interaction between nonspherical particles within the CFD–DEM

framework via multisphere approximation and rolling resistance method
Siamak Akhshika, Mehdi Behzada and Majid Rajabib
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran; bSchool of Mechanical Engineering, Iran University of Science
and Technology, Tehran, Iran

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The particle shape is an important factor playing critical role in evaluation of the interactions between CFD–DEM method;
particles in high-concentration particle-fluid flows. In this paper, the well-known multisphere (MS) multisphere method;
approximation approach and the novel rolling resistance approach are utilized to examine their nonspherical particle;
particles transportation;
performance in order to simplify the generalized shaped particle’s interactions within the framework of
rolling resistance method
discrete element method (DEM) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The performance of two
approaches are compared with the perfect particle’s shape geometry, for the limited cases of cubic-
shaped and disk-shaped particle flows in a horizontal well drilling process as a reference scenario.
Deviation of the MS approximation shape from the perfect particle geometry is evaluated by comparison
of macroscopic properties of nonspherical particle. It is determined that the data on macroscopic
parameters yielded by the MS model tend to converge to those of the smooth particle with the
increasing number of the subspheres. Moreover, the effectiveness of rolling resistance method is
investigated by comparison of macroscopic properties of nonspherical particles with approximated MS
approach and approximated spherical particles subjected to the rolling friction. The results show that the
updated rolling resistance model can reduce the inaccuracy in the prediction of the particles deposit
originated from the spherical shape idealization fairly and can be considered where the cost of
computations is a restrictive issue.

Introduction of complex shape. Contact detection efficiency and simplicity

of implementation, using sphere-to-sphere contact, is the main
The particle moving flow layer on the stationary bed is the
advantage of the MS model. The MS approach for approxi-
main path of particle transport in deviated well drilling.
mation of the smooth nonspherical particle with the increasing
Particle shape plays an important role in the moving flow
number of subspheres has been considered by Kruggel-Emden
layer, in which the particles collide, slide, jump, and roll in
et al. (2007). A broad overview of possible particle shape
close proximity to the bed surface. Most computational fluid
representations in the DEM can be found in Hogue (1998),
dynamics (CFD)–discrete element method (DEM) models of
Mezhericher, Brosh, and Levy (2011) as well as Latham and
the particle moving flow layer represent particles shape as sim-
Munjiza (2004).
ple sphere (Akhshik et al. 2015). The advantage of using sim-
Cubic-shaped and disk-shaped particles are probably the
ple spheres to represent particle shape is their simplicity,
most widely observed nonspherical shape in real particle mov-
especially in terms of interparticle contact detection. Moreover
ing flow layer in a deviated well drilling and other industrial
the contact force models for contacting spheres and spheres
process (Saito, Kamiwano, and Aoki 1984). The first CFD–
contacting flat walls are well known (Di Renzo and Di Maio
DEM model of nonspherical particles in deviated well drilling
2004; Kruggel-Emden et al. 2007, 2008). This simplification
has been developed by Akhshik et al. (2015) to simulate the
may lead to significant errors in the predictions made by the
hydrodynamic behavior of nonspherical particle-fluid flow in
numerical model. For example, interlocking of nonspherical
a laboratory-scale particle transport.
particles in moving bed layer cannot be simulated using
This work addresses the application of the MS approach to
spherical shape representation. Therefore, upgrading the
the modeling of cubic-shaped and disk-shaped particles with
models to consider the general shapes of particles and investi-
emphasis on the smooth nonspherical particle with the
gating the shape effects is an interest.
increasing number of subspheres. Despite the effectiveness of
A general approach for representation of nonspherical
the MS method to consider the shape effects, it can be easily
particles by rigidly connected multispheres is suggested by
shown that the time of computations will increase dramatically
Favier et al. (1999) and Ferellec and McDowell (2010).
which downgrades the efficiency of the method. For that
In multisphere (MS) approach, smaller body elements such
reason, introducing a model that takes into account the
as spheres are connected in order to form a clustered particle

CONTACT Siamak Akhshik Akhshik@mehr.sharif.ir Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Azadi Avenue, Tehran P.O. Box
11155-9313, Iran.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/upst.
© 2016 Taylor & Francis
382 S. AKHSHIK ET AL.
particles shape effects, in one the hand, and the spherical shape
idealization of the particles, on the other hand, is a desire.
For this purpose, a novel rolling resistant model is utilized
in order to introduce the particles shape effect on the rolling
motion of idealized spherical particles and update the
traditional model for the nonspherical geometries. Finally,
the effectiveness of the presented approach is examined by
an illustrative example.
Mathematical formulations
A three-dimensional (3D) model is prepared to study the flow
of particles in a deviated well drilling based on the CFD and
DEM. In this model, the shapes of particles are generalized
as nonspherical in addition to common spherical type. The
fluid phase is considered as an incompressible fluid. The dis-
persed phase (particles phase) is treated as a collection of indi-
vidual particles whose movements are governed by applying
Newton’s second law. The continuum fluid phase and the dis-
persed particles phase are strongly coupled via the interaction
forces such as the drag force, lift force, and pressure gradient
force that are taken into account in the developed CFD–DEM
model. Furthermore, the particles collisions are simulated by
DEM. In the following sections, the governing equations
of motion for the fluid and particles phases are presented,
followed by a description of the input data for CFD and
DEM simulations used in the present study.
Fluid phase
The 3D governing equations of motion of unsteady, viscous,
and incompressible fluid phase are described by the local
averaged Navier–Stokes equations on a computational cell
scale with source terms. The mass conservation equation is
expressed as
@ðaqf Þ
þ r � ðaqf uf Þ ¼ 0; ð1Þ
@t
where uf is the fluid velocity, ρf is the fluid density, and α is
the volume fraction of the fluid phase. The momentum
conservation equation is given as
@ðaqf uf Þ
þ $ � ðaqf uf uf Þ ¼ a$p þ a$ � s Sf þ aqf g; ð2Þ
@t
where p is the fluid pressure, τ is the viscous stress tensor, and
Sf is the volume-averaged (on a cell) interaction forces.
The source term Sf for a particular computational cell was
calculated by summing the fluid interaction forces on all par-
ticles present within that cell, and dividing by the volume of
the fluid computational cell:
!
X M
Sf ¼ Ff ;i IVcell ; ð3Þ
i¼1
where M is the number of particles in the cell and Vcell is the
volume of a fluid computational cell.
The relationship between the shear stress and shear rate in
the fluid phase is described by an appropriated rheological
model. Among the various rheological models proposed for
the fluid flows through a circular section or an annulus, the
Herschel–Bulkley model is used. In this model, the dynamic
viscosity is considered as (Huilgol and You 2005):
(
l ¼ lyield when c_ < lsyield 0
;
n n ð4Þ
s0 þkðc_ ðs0 =lyield Þ Þ
l¼ c_ when c_ � ls0 ;
yield
where k is the consistency factor, n is the power law exponent,
τ0 denotes the yield stress threshold, lyield means the yielding
viscosity, and c_ is the strain rate magnitude.
Particle phase
Multisphere method
The rotation of spherical particles is restricted only by
frictional forces between the particles and also with the other
surfaces, whereas for nonspherical particles, the rotation is
affected by mechanical locking in addition to the frictional
contact. For spherical particles, only the tangential forces lead
to the rotation of particles, and normal contact does not more
contribute to the moment and rotation, since they always act
through the center of the spherical particles. This is not the
case for nonspherical particles for which the rotation can be
as a result of both normal and tangential forces. Therefore,
spherical particles may not be a good representative for non-
spherical particles. In order to consider the possible influence
of nonspherical shape of particles on the transportation
process, the MS approach is utilized for construction of
nonspherical particles.
In this approach, a nonspherical particle is constructed by
rigidly connected spheres (Kruggel-Emden et al. 2008). The
contact is detected if the distance between the centers of the
two neighboring spheres is equal to the sum of their radii.
The advantage of this method is that it provides an approxi-
mation of the actual nonspherical particle while maintaining
computational efficiency and simplicity of the spherical
geometry. It must be noted that this advantage comes at the
expense of increased total number of spheres, which increase
the computational cost of the simulations.
In this paper, four different shapes of particles are prepared
to investigate their behavior on the particles transport process.
These particle samples are shown in Figure 1, where S1 is
a common sphere model (where S denotes to “Sphere”), S6
is a nonsmooth spherical particle that consists of six spherical
elements, D48 uses 48 spherical elements which are located on
circular paths and construct a disk-shaped particle, and finally,
Figure 1. Shape samples constructed with multiple spheres method.
 PARTICULATE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 383

where ωp is the rotational velocity of the clustered particle.

Contact detection for a particle approximated with the MS
approach is analogous to a spherical particle. Each component
sphere of particle p is checked for contact against each compo-
nent sphere of particle q or in the case of a particle–wall con-
tact, each component sphere is checked for contact against the
wall. The overlap is determined for each component sphere
the same way as conducted for spherical particles.
Contact forces are obtained from the calculated overlaps of
each element sphere as well as the relative velocities at each
Figure 2. Sphere approximated with multisphere approach for different levels contact point. The resulting overall force on the particle p is
of accuracy.
usually determined as
kc
X
C64 includes 64 spherical elements to make a cubic-shaped Fpc ¼
p
Fc;i ; ð8Þ
particle. For comparison purpose, the volumes of particle sam- e¼1
ples for different shapes are taken equal. p
where Fc;i is the contact force acting on the eth external spheri-
cal element of pth particle (kc refers to the number of spherical
Particle shape approximation elements on the external surface of each particle, e.g., kc ¼ 56
for C64 shape sample).
For the purpose of comparison, Figure 2 shows an MS
approximation conducted to a cubic-shaped MS approach
Particle motion
and a disk-shaped MS approach with different numbers of
The translational motion of pth particle in fluid flow is con-
inscribed spheres, i.e., different levels of accuracy.
ducted by gravity buoyancy, contact forces (e.g., particle–
A shape factor introduced by Wadell (1933) may be defined
particle, particle–drill pipe, particle–wall), and interaction
which represents the deviation of particle shape from common
forces (e.g., drag force, shear lift force, rotational lift force)
sphere as
described as (Mei 1992; Oesterleé and Bui Dinh 1998;
AS Sommerfeld 2000; Laín and Sommerfeld 2008)
u¼ ; ð5Þ !
AC
@up qf
where AS is the surface area of a sphere of the same volume of mp ¼ mp g 1 þ Fpc þ FD þ FS þ FM þ Fp ; ð9Þ
@t qp
the particle and AC is the surface area of the particle. Table 1
shows the sphericity of the mentioned particle samples. where mp is the mass of pth particle, ρp is the particle density,
Fpc is the overall contact force on the particle p, FD denoted the
Contact detection fluid drag force, FS refers to the shear lift force, FM means the
In contrast to spherical particles, the orientation of any more rotational lift force or Magnus force, and Fp is the fluid press-
complexly shaped particle has to be accounted. Therefore, ure gradient force.
apart from the global frame of reference, an additional body- The rotational motion of mentioned pth particle is
fixed frame is required to describe translational and rotational described as (Kuang, Yu, and Zou 2009)
body motion of the clustered particle. The location of the
Xkc � �
component spheres can be determined as d p p
Ip xp ¼ Ti;e þ Tpr;e þ TDT ; ð10Þ
� � p dt
x i ¼ x p þ M p � ri ; ð6Þ e¼1
h i p p
where Ti;e and Ti;p are the torque vectors produced by the tan-
where Mp is the rotational matrix converting vectors from
p gential and normal contact force acting on a certain element of
the body-fixed frame to the global coordinate system and ri
the pth particle (e ¼ 1,2,…, kc), respectively. Ip and ωp are the
is the vector from the clustered particle’s center of gravity to
moment of inertia tensor and rotational velocity of pth par-
the center of gravity of element sphere i. Analogously, the
ticle, respectively. The rotational motion is also affected by
velocity of the component spheres can be determined as p
� � the drag torque,TDT , that it is produced by the slip rotation.
p�
x_ i ¼ x_ p þ Mp � xp � ri ; ð7Þ
Contact forces and torques
The contact forces on the ith element of the pth particle from
Table 1. Sphericity of shape samples. the jth element of the qth particle is expressed as (see Figure 3)
Particle Sphericity (Di Renzo and Di Maio 2004)
Smooth sphere 1
p
Nonsmooth sphere 0.98 Fc;i ¼ Fn;ij þ Fdn;ij þ Ft;ij þ Fdt;ij ; ð11Þ
C8 0.91
C27 0.87 where Fn,ij denoted the normal contact force given as (Di
C64 0.85
D7 0.68 Renzo and Di Maio 2004)
D19 0.75 3=2
D48 0.79 Fn;ij ¼ kn;ij dn;ij nij ; ð12Þ
384 S. AKHSHIK ET AL.

Accordingly, the tangential torques acting on ith element

particle p due to particle collision (element j of particle q) is
expressed as (Kuang, Yu, and Zou 2009)
p p
Tt;i ¼ rij � ðFt;ij þ Fdt;ij Þ: ð18Þ

The torque that resists the rolling due to the hysteresis at

the point of contact acting on ith element particle p due to par-
ticle collision (element j of particle q) is expressed as (Kuang,
Yu, and Zou 2009)
�� �� x
p � p � pq
Tr;i ¼ lr �rij jjFn;ij � �� �� ; ð19Þ
xpq
p
where rij is a vector from the center of mass of particle p to the
Figure 3. Contact forces acting on a ith element of pth particle in contact with contact point, μr is the rolling friction coefficient, and ωpq ¼ ωp
jth element of qth particle during collisions. p p
ωq is the relative rotational velocity. The torques Tt;i and Tr;i
are generated by the tangential contact forces and the rolling
in which nij (¼ (Ri Rj)=|Ri Rj|) is normal unit vector, δn,ij is friction, respectively.
pffiffiffiffiffi�
the normal overlap, and kn;ij ¼ 43 E� R� is normal stiffness
coefficient in which E* is the equivalent
� Young’s modulus
h � � � i 1� Drag force and torque
E� ¼ 1 t2i =Ei þ 1 t2j =Ej , R* is the equivalent The drag force upon pth particle can be represented by
�
radius ½1=Ri þ 1=Rj � 1 with Ei, υi, Ri and Ej, υj, Rj being the
FD ¼ Ap ðuf up Þ; ð20Þ
Young’s modulus, Poisson ratio, and radius of each element in
contact. Fdn;ij means the normal damping force given by (Di where uf up means the slip velocity and Apdenotes the fluid–
Renzo and Di Maio 2004) particle exchange coefficient, expressed as (Shook and Roco
Fdn;ij ¼ Nn;ij vn;ij ; ð13Þ 1991)
� pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 1
�
where Nn;ij ¼ kn;ij m� wn;ij d4n;ij is the normal damping 3 ð1 aÞqf juf up j 1:65
Ap ¼ CD a ; ð21Þ
coefficient in which m� is the equivalent particle mass 4 dp
ð½1=mi þ 1=mj � 1 Þ with mi and mj being the mass of each
where dp is the mean diameter of pth particle and CD denotes
element in contact and vn,ij is the normal component of the
the drag coefficient as a function of the sphericity of generally
relative velocity of contact point. Damping ratio is given by
( nonspherical shape particles, φ, given by (Chien 1994)
2 ln e
pffiffiffi n;ij for en;ij 6¼ 0 30:0 67:289
wn;ij ¼ p2 þln2 en;ij ð14Þ CD ¼ þ 5:03p ; ð22Þ
2 for en;ij ¼ 0; ReHB e
where en,ij is the normal coefficient of restitution. in which the particle Reynolds number is defined as
The tangential component of the contact force, Ft,ij, is (Alexandrou et al. 2003)
expressed as (Di Renzo and Di Maio 2004) RePL
( � � � � ReHB ¼ ; ð23Þ
3
1 þ 7p
24 BiHB
kt;ij d2t;ij tij ; for �Ft;ij � < ls �Fn;ij �
Ft;ij ¼ � � � � � �; ð15Þ
ls �Fn;ij �tij ; for �Ft;ij � � ls �Fn;ij � where BiHB ¼ ðs0 =kÞðdp =juf up jÞ; RePL ¼ qf juf up j2 n
n=k
dp ; s0 , is the yield stress, k is the consistency factor, and n
where tij(¼ vt,ij/|vt,ij|)pisffiffiffitangential
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi unit vector and the tangen- is the power-law component of the model.
tial unit kt;ij ¼ 8G� R� dn;ij is the tangential stiffness coef- Accordingly, the drag torques acting on particle p due to
ficient in which G� is the equivalent shear modulus, δt,ij is the fluid velocity is expressed as (Sommerfeld 2000)
the tangential overlap, μs is sliding friction coefficient, and � �
vt,ij is the relative tangential velocity of contact point. p qp dp 5
TDT ¼ CDR jXjX; ð24Þ
The tangential damping force, Fdt;ij , is described as (Di 2 2
Renzo and Di Maio 2004)
where CDR is the rotational drag coefficient and Ω is the
Fdt;ij ¼ Nt;ij vt;ij ; ð16Þ relative angular velocity of the particle to the fluid (Ω ¼ ∇ �
� qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 1
� uf/2 ωp). The rotational drag coefficient, CDR, is defined as
where Nt;ij ¼ 27 kt;ij m� wt;ij d4t;ij is the tangential damping (Sommerfeld 2000)
coefficient. Damping ratio is given by (
12:9
( Re0:5
þ 128:4
Rer ; 32 � Rer < 1000
pffi2ffiffilnffiffiffieffiffit;ijffi2ffiffiffiffiffi for et;ij 6¼ 0 CDR ¼ 64p r ð25Þ
Rer ; Rer < 32;
wt;ij ¼ p2 þln et;ij ð17Þ
2 for et;ij ¼ 0;
in which the Reynolds number of particle rotation is given by
where et,ij is the tangential coefficient of restitution. Rer ¼ qdp2 jXj=l.
 PARTICULATE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 385

�
Lift force can transmit a torque Tpr not exceeding a maximum value
The lift forces including the shear lift force (Saffman) and of lrReq|Fn|, where lr is the rolling friction coefficient and
the rotational lift force (Magnus) are perpendicular to the Req is the radius of a sphere with the same volume of
direction of the relative velocity between the particles and the nonspherical particle (i.e., equivalent radius). Relative
fluid. The shear lift force (Saffman) exerted on pth particle is rotation �between two particles in contact is allowed if
given by (Saffman 1965; Mei 1992; Sommerfeld 2000). Tpr ¼ Tpr max ¼ lr Req jFn j.
qf p 3 � � � The contribution of the particle shape on the rolling
Fs ¼ CLS d p uf up � x f ; ð26Þ resistance torque is due to the effect of an offset between the
8
normal line of the surface at the contact point and the mass
where ωf is the curl of the fluid velocity (ωf ¼ ∇ � uf) and center of nonspherical particle, as illustrated in Figure 4.
(Sommerfeld 2000) Obviously, this offset is zero for the ideal case of spherical
p
4:1126 geometry. This eccentricity, de , leads to an extra torque (i.e.,
CLS ¼ f ðReHB ; Res Þ; ð27Þ
Re0:5
s
in addition to the hysteresis effect) about the center of mass
f ðReHB ; Res Þ ¼ related to the normal force within the contact as
( �
ð1 0:3314 b0:5 Þe ReHB =10 þ 0:3314 b0:5 ReHB � 40 Tpr eccentricity ¼ rp � Fn ; ð32Þ
;
0:0524ðb � ReHB Þ0:5 ReHB > 40 � � �
� � p
where � Tpr eccentricity � ¼ de jFn j. In order to idealize the
ð28Þ
nonspherical particles with the spherical ones with the same
in which β ¼ 0.5Res/ReHB (0.005 < β < 0.4) and Reynolds volume and concurrently, to consider the shape effect, this
number for shear flow is Res ¼ qf dp2 jxf j=l. extra torque is substituted by an extra rolling friction force
The rotational lift force (Magnus) exerted on pth particle is at the contact point with the value of μshape Req|Fn| equal to
calculated as (Oesterleé and Bui Dinh 1998; Sommerfeld 2000) p
de jFn j. Therefore, the rolling friction coefficient should be
� � updated as
p 2 X � ðuf up Þ
FM ¼ dp qf CLM juf up j ; ð29Þ
8 jXj lr ¼ lr þ lshape ; ð33Þ
where CLM is the coefficient of rotational lift (Sommerfeld
p
2000), given by where lshape ¼ de =Req :
� � Due to the dependency of the equivalent rolling friction
Rer 0:4 0:3
CLM ¼ 0:45 þ 0:45 e 0:568 Rer ReHB : ð30Þ coefficient to the position of contact point, different estimation
ReHB for it exists. Therefore, four different values between the
minimum and the maximum estimated values are selected
for simulations. The nominal radius of approximated spherical
Pressure gradient force
particles is calculated from the following:
The pressure gradient force is expressed as
rffiffiffiffiffiffi
Fp ¼ Vp $p; ð31Þ 3 3V
Req ¼ ; ð34Þ
where Vp indicates the volume of the pth particle and ∇p is the 4p
gradient of the static pressure of the fluid phase at the location
where V represents the volume of a nonspherical particle.
of particle.

Equivalent rolling friction

One of the limitations of the MS method to make nonspherical
particles is the increase of the computations time and the
program complexity. Also, the contact detection between non-
spherical particles is very complicated. Due to these disadvan-
tages, it is always motivating to idealize the shape of particles
as sphere. Clearly, this idealization needs to be compensated
in order to take account of the particles shape effects. For
this purpose, the equivalent rolling friction method is utilized
in which the relative angular motion of particles is allowed
for rolling torques beyond a specified threshold. The rolling
resistance torque includes the contribution of two parts.
One part belongs to the hysteresis effects (viscoelasticity,
microsliding, plasticity, surface adhesion, etc.), and the other
part is due to the particle shape effects.
Rolling resistance torque due to the hysteresis is expressed Figure 4. Contact between two nonspherical particles. The contact normal
by Equation (19). This equation assumes that a contact force does not pass through the center of the particle and a torque is produced.
386 S. AKHSHIK ET AL.

Information exchange in CFD–DEM framework

Figure 5 shows a diagram of the CFD–DEM framework. The
fluid flow is simulated in the CFD model. When the solution
converges, the CFD results are transferred to the CFD–DEM
coupling interface which leads to the calculation of the drag
forces, lift forces, and pressure gradient forces acting on
particles. The calculated interaction forces are then transferred
to the DEM solver which extracts the particle motion. Then,
the CFD–DEM coupling interface takes the data of the new
particle position and velocity from the DEM solver and
updates the particle volume fraction in each computational
cell, and finally, the data are transferred to the CFD solver, Figure 6. Configuration of problem.
for the next CFD time step. The CFD solver again iterates over
the next time step until the solution converges. The DEM time
step should be always less than the CFD time step. Here, the parameters, the rheological constants, and the operational
authors suggest that the DEM time step should be selected characteristics are inspired from the experimental study by
as 0.01 of the CFD time step for stability of solutions. Tomren, Iyoho, and Azar (1986) as given in Table 2. The
In this paper, the CFD model of fluid flow has been solved restitution coefficients are assumed to be 0.9. The same values
by the SIMPLEC (Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure-Linked are set for interactions between the particles and the walls.
Equations) algorithm and momentum equations of the fluid The fluid domain is divided into 140,000 CFD computational
phase have been solved by the second-order implicit time cells for adequate stability of the solution and satisfactory
integration. The equations of motion of the dispersed particles convergence.
in DEM simulation have been solved by the explicit time
integration method.
The time steps for CFD and DEM solvers for satisfactory Results and discussion
convergence are selected 0.001 and 0.00001 sec, respectively. Validation of CFD–DEM computational model
The coupled framework has been run for a time period of
60 sec which has taken approximately 90 d of CPU time, For verification of the model, the volume concentration
running on a 32 core Intel1-Xeon1 CPU processor (3.4 GHz) of particles for two cases of S1 and S6 are computed and
(Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA, USA) with 64 GB of RAM. compared with the experimental data reported by Tomren,
The mesh independency of the problem is obtained by Iyoho, and Azar (1986). The results of cases S1 and S6 are
increasing the number of mesh elements in a trial and error approximately indistinguishable, which indicates that the MS
manner in order to obtain adequate convergence of the approach implemented properly in the computational model.
computations. Figure 7 compares the experimental data (Tomren, Iyoho,
and Azar 1986) with the computational results of the particle
concentration as a function of well inclination for selected
Geometry of problem inlet velocity of fluid. As this figure shows, the computational
results are in good agreement with the experimental data
The configuration of the problem consists of a finite length for higher inlet velocity and lower well inclination. Parti-
eccentric annulus created by two cylindrical bodies, deviated cularly, for the fluid inlet velocity of 0.58 m/sec, the maximum
from the vertical by the angle of φ. The interior cylinder error between the computational results and the experimental
rotates with a constant rotating velocity around its axis. The ones is less than 25%.
rotation speed is set 50 rpm. The two-phase flow including
dispersed particles in a progressive fluid is entered interior
the annulus from the one end and exited from the other. Table 2. Data used for verification of numerical solution and the experimental
Boundary conditions of the problem include the specific value data reported by Tomren et al. (1986).
for the velocity inlet and the pressure outlet (see Figure 6). The Parameter Variable Value Units
contact between the particles and the walls are taken no slip. Drill string Length L 12 m
The process is considered isothermal. The geometrical Angle of inclination θ 00,20,40,60,80 deg
Pipe diameter Dp 48.26 mm
Hole diameter Dh 127 mm
Particle diameter dp 6.35 mm
Particle dry density ρp 2619 Kg/m3
fluid behavior index n 0.65 –
Consistency index k 0.28 Pa · sn
Fluid inlet velocity uf,inlet 0.58 (1.9) m/sec
0.72 (2.39) (ft/sec)
1.165 (3.34)
Drill pipe rotation speed ωdrillpipe 50 rpm
Eccentricity ratio s 0.5 —
Particle injection rate 0.1512 (20) Kg/sec
(lbm/min)
Figure 5. Computational diagram of CFD–DEM framework.

Figure 7. Particles concentration versus annulus inclination (angle) for selected drill pipe rotation speed and fluid inlet velocity.
Particle deposit along the well hole
Figure 8 demonstrates the process of particles deposit through
the well hole. It is seen that the particles gradually accumulate
and the bed grows up to a specific height that the velocity of
fluid flow reaches a critical value. At this point, the fluid velo-
city is so high that the particles cannot deposit and the hori-
zontal particle transport is guaranteed.
As the time passes, the phenomenon of particle deposit
continues along the total length of well hole. Ultimately, a
steady-state condition is achieved and the bed height becomes
constant throughout the entire length of the hole. Similar
behavior has been reported by experimental work of Tomren,
Iyoho, and Azar (1986).
Figure 8. The Snapshots of particle deposit along the well hole.
PARTICULATE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 387
The effects of particle shape on concentration profile
The simulation of steady particle flow patterns and their
concentration profile at a same position along the well hole are
shown in Figure 9 for spherical, cubic, and disk-shaped particles.
As it is seen, the particles with the disk shape demonstrate
higher concentration in comparison with cubic and spherical
ones. It is due to the fact that although the particles are
approximately in the same size, but nonspherical particles
are not sliding easily on each other. In general, it can be
inferred that as the shape of particles are deviated from
the ideal spherical (i.e., their sphericity decreases), their
concentration increases.
Figure 9. A snapshot of particle motion and deposit: (a) spherical particles,
(b) cubic-shaped particles, and (c) disk-shaped particles.
388 S. AKHSHIK ET AL.
Figure 10. Effect of particle shape on the particles concentration.
The simulation results of particle volume concentration for
mentioned shape samples and for different fluid inlet velocity
are shown in Figure 10. Obviously, as the inlet velocity
increases, the destructive concentration decreases. Addition-
ally, the cleaning performance is influenced by the shape of
particles, especially in low-speed range.
Figure 11. Effect of particle shape on the particles concentration for different levels of accuracy of multisphere approach.
Figure 12. Effect of particle shape on the particles concentration for spherical particles with rolling resistance model.
The effects of particle shape approximation on
concentration profile
To further evaluate the capability of the MS approach for
approximating cubic-shaped and disk-shaped particles as well
as the quality of the results for different approximation accura-
cies, the resulting particle volume concentrations versus fluid
inlet velocities are investigated in the following.
For the sake of comparison, the results calculated for par-
ticle volume concentration obtained by using the 48 sub-
spheres for disk-shaped and 64 subspheres for cubic-shaped
are denoted as reference solution. The results of MS approxi-
mation procedure at different approximation levels for various
fluid inlet velocities are compared with the reference solution
of the nonspherical particles. Figure 11(a) and (b) shows the
deviation of the particle volume concentration from the results
as of the reference solution. The results show that there are no
increases of the deviation for the particle concentration with
decreasing approximation accuracy, i.e., decreasing number
of component spheres. The number of component spheres
has remarkable effect on the average computation time
because the size of the particle time step is a function of the
number of component spheres; thus, smaller number of
component spheres led to larger particle time steps. The
 PARTICULATE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 389

Figure 13. Effect of rolling friction coefficient related to disk-shaped particle on particles concentration in different hole inclination and different drill
pipe rotation.

Figure 14. Effect of rolling friction coefficient related to cubic-shaped particle on particles concentration in different hole inclination and different drill
pipe rotation.
390 S. AKHSHIK ET AL.
reduced number of component spheres allowed the simulation
to run about five times as fast.
The rolling friction updated model and the shape
idealization of particles
Comparison between the MS approximation method and the
rolling resistance method for disk-shaped and cubic-shaped
particles are shown in Figure 12. Based on various contact
points and eccentricity distances, various frictions coefficients
are obtained. The maximum rolling friction coefficients for the
disk-shaped and cubic-shaped particles are computed as 0.95
and 0.32, respectively. Four rolling friction coefficients are
considered in the simulations. As seen from this figure, as
the rolling friction coefficient increases, the particle volume
concentrations approach the results of the MS method (i.e.,
the true simulation of the nonspherical particles). This trend
is repeated for all selected fluid inlet velocities. Particularly,
the time required for the simulation of particle transportation
using rolling resistance model is one tenth of the time required
using MS method.
Figures 13 and 14 examine the particle concentration for
selected inclination angles (0°, 20°, 40°, 60°, 80°) and different
inlet velocity (cases (a) 0.58, (b) 0.87, (c) 1.16 m/sec) at con-
stant rotation velocity ω ¼ 50 rpm. For lowest inlet velocity
for case (a), the particle concentration faces with a jump
(remarkable increase) at inclination angles near 40° which this
happening has been reported experimentally by Tomren,
Iyoho, and Azar (1986). Clearly, with decreasing inclination
from 80° to 40°, where the particle deposit phenomenon
comes up further, the differences between the results of the
rolling resistance model and the MS method are increased.
However, by increasing the inlet fluid velocity, the differences
are decreased. Particularly, for the case of the cubic particles,
as it is observed in Figure 14, the results of the MS method
are followed by the rolling friction updated model.
Ultimately, it can be concluded from Figures 13–14 that the
simulation of the hole-cleaning process enhanced by the roll-
ing friction model, and cannot exactly follow the true model
considering the general nonspherical particles where many
complex phenomena may be occurred due to the shape effects;
but the rolling resistance model can compensate the errors of
the prediction of the particles hold-up, originated from the
spherical shape idealization in traditional simulations, to some
extent. Obviously, the introduced model must be updated
further to minimize the existed errors, especially for the more
complex shapes of particles where the physics behind the
shape effects is much more complicated than what is approxi-
mated by the rolling resistance method.
Conclusions
When implementing more complex body shapes for particles
such as disk-shaped or cubic-shaped and MS cluster into a dis-
crete element code, multiple contact points may occur during
a collision. Considering the long times of computations due to
the complexities in contact predictions of nonspherical particle
in MS approach, introducing a model that takes into account
the particles shape effects, in the one hand, and the spherical
shape idealization of the particles, on the other hand, is a
desire. For this goal, a rolling friction method has been utilized
in order to simplify the geometry of the nonspherical particles
as the idealized spherical ones, taking into account the shape
effects, by implementation of an extra torque at the contact
points in addition to the common hysteresis torque effect.
The main advantage of the rolling friction-based model updat-
ing is due to the computational cost-effectiveness. Considering
some numerical examples, it has been shown that the rolling
resistance model can compensate the errors of the prediction
of the particles hold-up, originated from the spherical
shape idealization in traditional simulations, to some extent.
Obviously, the introduced model must be updated
further, especially for the more complex shapes of particles.
The developed model may be considered as a reliable
prediction tool and cost-effective approach with respect to
the MS method.
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