Unsteady sedimentation of a spherical solid particle in a viscous fluid

Sedimentation of spherical heavy solid particles from a state of rest in a highly viscous incompressible fluid is studied. With account of the Basset force, the problem is reduced to Cauchy’s problem for a linear integro-differential equation. An exact solution of this problem is found in the form of single-valued functions of a real variable, and simple asymptotic formulas are obtained. The sedimentation law determined is verified experimentally.