Fluid particle interaction in packings of monodisperse angular particles

Understanding fluid flow in granular materials is essential for many engineering applications, including petroleum recovery, groundwater movement and embankment stability. This study investigates the influence of particle angularity on permeability and fluid-particle interaction forces. A random shape generator based on spherical harmonics is used to create irregular-shaped particles with different levels of angularity. Granular packings of uniformly sized (monodisperse) particles are then constructed with the discrete element method (DEM), and pore-scale computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are used to determine the flow fields and the resulted fluid-particle interaction. The more angular particle assemblies thus generated are less permeable, and their fluid-particle interaction forces are higher. However, angularity has limited influence on flow rate distribution and flow tortuosity. The influence of angularity is localized. An increase in angularity generates a larger variance of the pressure distribution on the particle surfaces, thus increasing the pressure component of the fluid-particle interaction force. [Display omitted] •A framework to generate dense packings of angular particles is proposed.•Flow in packings of uniform angular particles is simulated with pore-scale CFD.•Influence of particle angularity on permeability is quantified.•Detailed statistical analysis is performed on fluid-particle interactions.•Particle-to-particle variance of fluid-particle interactions is analyzed.