Les matériaux granulaires multiphasiques occupent une place très importante dans notre environnement qui suscitent un grand intérêt de nombreuses communautés scientifiques, notamment celles de la mécanique des sols ou de la géotechnique. Le caractère divisé permet les milieux granulaires multiphasiques d'avoir un comportement mécanique global qui trouve leur origine, leur distribution et interactions entre les phases de composition. Un modèle de couplage hydromécanique est présenté dans ce travail de thèse pour l'application à la modélisation microscopique des couplages hydromécaniques dans les matériaux granulaires saturés. Le modèle numérique est basé sur un couplage de la méthode des éléments discrets (DEM) avec une formulation en volumes finis, à l'échelle des pores (PFV), du problmème de l'écoulement d'un fluide visqueux incompressible. Le solide est modélisé comme un arrangement de particules sphériques avec des interactions de type élasto-plastique aux contacts solide-solide. On considère un écoulement de Stokes incompressible, en supposant que les forces inertielles sont négligeables par rapport aux forces visqueuses. La géométrie des pores et leur connectivité sont définies sur la base d'une triangulation régulière des sphères, qui aboutit à un maillage tétrahédrique. La définition des conductivités hydrauliques à l'échelle des pores est un point clef du modèle, qui se rapproche sur ce point à des modèles de type pore-network. Une importance particulière réside dans les lois d'interactions fluide-solide permettant de déterminer des forces de fluide appliquées sur chacune des particules, tout en assurant un coût de calcul acceptable pour la modélisation en trois dimensions avec plusieurs millieurs des particules. Des mesures de perméabilités sur des assemblages bidisperses de billes de verre sont présentées et comparées aux prédictions du modèle et aux formules empiriques/semi-empiriques dans la littérature, ce qui valide la définition de la conductivité locale et met en évidence le rôle de la distribution granulométrique et la porosité. Une approche numérique pour analyser l'interaction mécanique fluide-solide et les mécanismes d'érosion interne est finalement présentée. / Multiphase granular materials occupy a very important place in our environment that are of great interest to many scientific communities, including those of soil mechanics or geotechnical engineering. The divided nature allows multiphase granular media to have a global mechanical behaviour which originates from all component phases, their distribution and interactions. Acoupled hydromechanical model is presented in this work for the application to microscopic modeling of coupled hydromechanical in saturated granular materials. The numerical model uses a combination of the discrete element method (DEM) with a pore-scale finite volume (PFV) formulation of flow problem of an incompressible viscous fluid. The solid is modeled as an assembly of spherical particles, where contact interactions are governed by elasto-plasticrelations. Stokes flow is considered, assuming that inertial forces are small in comparison with viscous forces. Pore geometry and pore connections are defined locally through regular triangulation of spheres, from which a tetrahedral mesh arises. The definition of pore-scale hydraulic conductivities is a key aspect of this model. In this sense, the model is similar to a pore-network model. The emphasis of this model is, on one hand the microscopic description of the interaction between phases, with the determination of the forces applied on solid particles by the fluid, on the other hand, the model involves affordable computational costs, that allow the simulation of thousands of particles in three dimensional models. Permeability measurements on bidispersed glass beads are reported and compared with model predictions and empirical formulas/semi-empirical in the literature, validating the definition of local conductivities and bringing out the role of particle size distribution and porosity. A numerical approach to analyze the fluid-solid mechanical interaction and mechanisms of internal erosion is finally presented.

Este trabalho propõe o estudo do projeto de dispositivos baseados em microcanais de fluido, tais como difusores, misturadores, válvulas, e trocadores de calor, através da aplicação do Método de Otimização Topológica (MOT). O MOT é um método computacional que permite obter um projeto otimizado de um sistema, através da distribuição de uma quantidade limitada de material num dado domínio de projeto. Neste caso, o MOT é aplicado a um domínio fluido, e permite obter a topologia otimizada (formato ótimo) dos microcanais, segundo uma determinada característica, seja esta, a minimização da perda de carga, ou a maximização da velocidade num dado ponto, ou ainda a maximização da troca de calor, no caso de trocadores de calor. Os canais utilizados nestas aplicações operam com baixo número de Reynolds, sendo um caso típico da aplicação das equações de escoamento de Stokes. A implementação do MOT é realizada sob a forma de rotinas computacionais, permitindo um projeto sistematizado dos canais. No processo de otimização, utiliza-se o Método dos Elementos Finitos (MEF) como método de análise dos fenômenos físicos envolvidos, e a Programação Linear Seqüencial (PLS) como algoritmo de otimização. Ao final, propõe-se um estudo multi-físico, aliando-se características otimizadas tanto do ponto de vista da eficiência do escoamento, quanto do ponto de vista da dissipação térmica no canal, combinando-os através de uma função multi-objetivo. Exemplos de projeto bidimensionais de dispositivos de fluido são apresentados para ilustrar o método. / This work proposes studying the design of micro channel devices, such as fluid diffusers, mixers, valves, and heat exchangers, through the application of the Topology Optimization Method (TOM). The TOM is a computational method that allows the distribution of a limited amount of material, inside a given design domain, in order to obtain an optimized system design. Herein, the TOM is applied to a fluidic domain, allowing the design of an optimized microchannel topology (optimal configuration), according to a given objective function, such as head loss minimization, maximum velocity in a given direction, or the heat transfer maximization, in a heat exchanger example. Especially this kind of channel devices, operates at low Reynolds number, thus, it can be modeled through Stokes flow equations. The optimization procedure applies the Finite Element Method (FEM) to perform the physical analysis, and Sequential Linear Programming (SLP) as the optimization algorithm. At the end, a multi-physics analysis is proposed, through a multi-objective cost function, that combines both flow and heat dissipation efficiency optimization. Two-dimensional designs of fluidic devices are presented as examples to illustrate the method.

Particle suspensions occur in many situations in nature and industry. In this master’s thesis, the motion of a single rigid spheroidal particle immersed in Stokes flow is studied numerically using a boundary integral method and a new specialized quadrature method known as quadrature by expansion (QBX). This method allows the spheroid to be massless or inertial, and placed in any kind of underlying Stokesian flow.   A parameter study of the QBX method is presented, together with validation cases for spheroids in linear shear flow and quadratic flow. The QBX method is able to compute the force and torque on the spheroid as well as the resulting rigid body motion with small errors in a short time, typically less than one second per time step on a regular desktop computer. Novel results are presented for the motion of an inertial spheroid in quadratic flow, where in contrast to linear shear flow the shear rate is not constant. It is found that particle inertia induces a translational drift towards regions in the fluid with higher shear rate. / Partikelsuspensioner förekommer i många sammanhang i naturen och industrin. I denna masteruppsats studeras rörelsen hos en enstaka stel sfäroidisk partikel i Stokesflöde numeriskt med hjälp av en randintegralmetod och en ny specialiserad kvadraturmetod som kallas quadrature by expansion (QBX). Metoden fungerar för masslösa eller tröga sfäroider, som kan placeras i ett godtyckligt underliggande Stokesflöde.   En parameterstudie av QBX-metoden presenteras, tillsammans med valideringsfall för sfäroider i linjärt skjuvflöde och kvadratiskt flöde. QBX-metoden kan beräkna kraften och momentet på sfäroiden samt den resulterande stelkroppsrörelsen med små fel på kort tid, typiskt mindre än en sekund per tidssteg på en vanlig persondator. Nya resultat presenteras för rörelsen hos en trög sfäroid i kvadratiskt flöde, där skjuvningen till skillnad från linjärt skjuvflöde inte är konstant. Det visar sig att partikeltröghet medför en drift i sidled mot områden i fluiden med högre skjuvning.