STOKES DRAG ON A DISK SEDIMENTING TOWARD A PLANE OR WITH OTHER DISKS - ADDITIONAL EFFECTS OF A SIDE WALL OR FREE-SURFACE

For comparison with recent experimental results, a concise analytical method is presented for the sedimentation of a disk moving toward a plane wall in the presence of a parallel free surface or axisymmetric cylindrical container. In each case the problem is reduced to the numerical solution of dual integral equations and computed values of the normalized drag coefficient are displayed. The method is also applied to an array of sedimenting disks, possibly within a circular pipe, and then there is usually a larger number of integral equations to be solved. However, a clear pattern for the construction of the kernels emerges from the sample cases considered. © 1990 American Institute of Physics.