Mirror fluid method for numerical simulation of sedimentation of a solid particle in a Newtonian fluid

The mirror fluid method is proposed for simulating solid-fluid two-phase flow. The whole computational domain is modeled as an Eulerian one for the fluid with a Lagrangian subdomain embedded in it. The boundary condition is enforced implicitly on solid-fluid surface segments by mirror relations. Thus, the total flow is solved in the one domain, in which the solid particle region is replaced with the virtual flow as the mirror image of outside flow. The mirror fluid method is implemented to compute the motion of a rigid spherical or elliptic particle in a Newtonian fluid for the purpose of method validation. The control volume formulation with the SIMPLE algorithm incorporated is used to solve the governing equations on a staggered grid in a two-dimensional coordinate system. A number of numerical experiments on falling particles are performed and the computational results are in good agreement with the reported experimental data.