Motion of a neutrally buoyant circular particle in a lid-driven square cavity with a semicircular obstacle

Understanding, predicting and controlling the motion of the solid particles in the square cavity with obstacles are important. This work performs a lattice Boltzmann study on the motion of a neutrally buoyant circular particle in a lid-driven square cavity with a semicircular obstacle, where the effects of Reynolds numbers and initial positions of the circular particle on the motion of the circular particle are investigated. The motion of the circular particle is affected significantly by the semicircular obstacle, which is quite different from the case without obstacles. With the increase of the Reynolds number, the motion of the circular particle is divided into three stages. At low Reynolds numbers (500≤Re≤800), similar to the case without obstacles, no matter where the initial position of the circular particle is, the limit cycle of the circular particle is the same. Beyond a critical Reynolds number (between 800 and 900), the limit cycle of the circular particle is dependent on the initial position of the circular particle obviously, which is attributed to the opposing centrifugal and wall-repulsion forces.