Surface Deformation in a Liquid Environment Resulting from Single Particle Collisions

Multiphase flows are fairly complex and they are usually studied as a bulk. In this thesis, these flows are approached by looking at single particle interactions (particle-particle and particle-wall). This work presents experimental measurements of the approach and rebound of a particle colliding with a ``deformable' surface in a viscous liquid. The complex interaction between the fluid and the solid phases is coupled through the dynamics of the flow as well as the deformation process. A simple pendulum experiment was used to produced single controlled collisions; steel particles were used to impact different aluminum alloy samples (Al-6061, Al-2024, and Al-7075) using different aqueous mixtures of glycerol and water as a viscous fluid. The velocity of the particle before and after the collision was estimated by post-processing the particle position recorded with a high speed camera. For the combination of materials proposed, the elastic limit is reached at relatively low velocities. The deformations produced by the collision were analyzed using an optical profilometer. The measurements showed that the size of the indentations is independent of the fluid media. It was found that the size of the indentations was the same for collisions in air than for the rest of the collisions using various viscous fluids. The results show that the plastic deformation is only a function of the impact velocity and the material properties. The normal coefficient of restitution and deformation parameters account for losses due to lubrication effect and inelasticity, identifying then, the dominant energy loss mechanism during the collision process. According to the strain imposed in the samples due to the collision, the deformations were either elastic or elastic-plastic. The equivalent load due to the impact velocities used in this work did not reach the fully-plastic regime. For the collisions in air, different models were used to compare the experimental results showing that the elastic-plastic regime is not well characterized by only the material properties and the impact velocity. The time-resolved contact force was measured during the process of the indentation for the dry collision experiments using a quartz load transducer. The experiments clearly show four different regimes depending on the impact Stokes number: lubrication effect and elastic deformation, lubrication effect and elastic-plastic deformation, elastic deformation with no hydrodynamic effects, and elastic-plastic deformation with negligible lubrication effect. An analysis of the erosion of ductile materials during immersed collisions is presented. The size of the crater formed by the impact of a single particle against a ductile target can be estimated from theory, and these estimates agree well with experimental measurements.