Second‐order boundary element method calculations of hydrodynamic interactions between particles in close proximity

A second-order boundary element technique was developed to simulate the 3D hydrodynamic interactions between multiple particles of arbitrary shape. This paper reports the results of an extensive validation procedure aimed at demonstrating the convergence characteristics of the technique, especially in cases where the particles are in close proximity. The quadratic elements are superior to the lower-order elements in terms of accuracy, computer storage and CPU time required, thus resulting in a significant improvement in the overall computational efficiency. Superparametric discretization improves the accuracy over isoparametric discretization but lowers the convergence rate of the method. When the interparticle gap becomes very small (less than 1% of the particle radius), the numerical solution diverges owing to inaccurate determination of the element contributions in the gap region. An adaptive subdomain integration scheme was developed that dramatically improved the integration accuracy and provided convergent solutions for problems of very small gaps down to 0–01% of the particle diameter.