On the dynamics and wakes of a freely settling Platonic polyhedron in a quiescent Newtonian fluid

We investigate systematically the free settling of a single Platonic polyhedron in an unbounded domain filled with an otherwise quiescent Newtonian fluid. We consider a particle–fluid density mimicking a rock in water. Five Platonic polyhedrons of increasing sphericity are studied for a range of Galileo numbers $10 \leqslant \mathcal {G}a \leqslant 300$ . We construct a regime map in the parameter space of Galileo number and particle volume fraction ( $\mathcal {G}a, \phi$ ), highlighting how the angularity of the Platonic polyhedron impacts its settling path and the onset of instabilities. We find that the initial angular position solely affects the transient settling process. All the Platonic polyhedrons maintain a stable settling angular position at low $\mathcal {G}a$ . Higher angularity leads to path unsteadiness at lower $\mathcal {G}a$ . Path instability progresses from steady vertical to unsteady vertical, followed by oblique settling observed for highly spherical particles, but helical settling (HS) for more angular particles. The particle autorotation is found to be the pivotal factor influencing path instability and the regime transition of angular particles. Beginning in the unsteady oblique and helical regimes, particle autorotation becomes more prevalent, escalating further in the chaotic regime as $\mathcal {G}a$ increases. The particle angular velocity vector is shown to be predominantly situated in the horizontal plane. A thorough force balance in the horizontal plane reveals that the Magnus force is the primary driving force of the HS regime. Additionally, we establish two new empirical correlations to predict the particle settling velocity and the disturbed wake length that solely require the physical properties of the system ( $\mathcal {G}a$ and $\phi$ ). Our numerical results suggest that an increase of the density ratio from $2$ to $3$ exerts only a marginal impact on the path instability of the most angular particle, the settling tetrahedron.