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Break-up of suspension drops settling under gravity in a viscous fluid close to a vertical wall

The evolution of suspension drops sedimenting under gravity in a viscous fluid close to a vertical wall was studied experimentally and numerically with the use of the point-force model, in the Stokes flow regime. The fluid inside and outside the drop was identical. The initial distribution of the suspended solid heavy particles was uniform inside a spherical volume. In the experiments and in the simulations, the suspension drops evolved qualitatively in the same way as in an unbounded fluid. However, it was observed, both experimentally and numerically that, on the average, the destabilization time T and the distance L traveled by the drop until break-up were smaller for a closer distance h of the drop center from the wall, with approximately linear dependence of T and L on D/h, for h larger or comparable to the drop diameter D. Destabilization times and lengths of individual drops with different random configurations of the particles were shown to differ significantly from each other, owing to the chaotic nature of the particle dynamics.