Settling regimes of inertial particles in isotropic turbulence

2014 ◽  
Vol 759 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. H. Good ◽  
P. J. Ireland ◽  
G. P. Bewley ◽  
E. Bodenschatz ◽  
L. R. Collins ◽  
...  

AbstractWe investigate the settling speeds and root mean square (r.m.s.) velocities of inertial particles in isotropic turbulence with gravity using experiments with water droplets in air turbulence from 32 loudspeaker jets and direct numerical simulations (DNS). The dependence on particle inertia, gravity and the scales of both the smallest and largest turbulent eddies is investigated. We isolate the mechanisms of turbulence settling modification and find that the reduced settling speeds of large particles in experiments are due to nonlinear drag effects. We demonstrate using DNS that reduced settling speeds with linear drag (e.g. see Nielsen, J. Sedim. Petrol., vol. 63, 1993, pp. 835–838) only arise in artificial flows that, by design, eliminate preferential sweeping by the eddies. Gravity and inertia both reduce the particle r.m.s. velocities and falling particles are more responsive to vertical than to horizontal fluctuations. The model by Wang & Stock (J. Atmos. Sci., vol. 50, 1993, pp. 1897–1913) captures these trends.

2010 ◽  
Vol 650 ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. TRYGGVASON

Direct numerical simulations are rapidly becoming one of the most important techniques to examine the dynamics of multiphase flows. Lucci, Ferrante & Elghobashi (J. Fluid Mech., 2010, this issue, vol. 650, pp. 5–55) address several fundamental issues for spherical particles in isotropic turbulence. They show the importance of including the finite size of the particles and discuss how particles of a size comparable to the largest length scale at which viscosity substantially affects the turbulent eddies (i.e. the Taylor microscale) always increase the dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy.


1991 ◽  
Vol 226 ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle D. Squires ◽  
John K. Eaton

Measurements of heavy particle dispersion have been made using direct numerical simulations of isotropic turbulence. The parameters affecting the dispersion of solid particles, namely particle inertia and drift due to body forces were investigated separately. In agreement with the theoretical studies of Reeks, and Pismen & Nir, the effect of particle inertia is to increase the eddy diffusivity over that of the fluid (in the absence of particle drift). The increase in the eddy diffusivity of particles over that of the fluid was between 2 and 16%, in reasonable agreement with the increases reported in Reeks, and Pismen & Nir. The effect of a deterministic particle drift is shown to decrease unequally the dispersion in directions normal and parallel to the particle drift direction. Eddy diffusivities normal and parallel to particle drift are shown to be in good agreement with the predictions of Csanady and the experimental measurements of Wells & Stock.


2016 ◽  
Vol 798 ◽  
pp. 187-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Vajedi ◽  
K. Gustavsson ◽  
B. Mehlig ◽  
L. Biferale

The distribution of particle accelerations in turbulence is intermittent, with non-Gaussian tails that are quite different for light and heavy particles. In this article we analyse a closure scheme for the acceleration fluctuations of light and heavy inertial particles in turbulence, formulated in terms of Lagrangian correlation functions of fluid tracers. We compute the variance and the flatness of inertial-particle accelerations and we discuss their dependency on the Stokes number. The closure incorporates effects induced by the Lagrangian correlations along the trajectories of fluid tracers, and its predictions agree well with results of direct numerical simulations of inertial particles in turbulence, provided that the effects induced by inertial preferential sampling of heavy/light particles outside/inside vortices are negligible. In particular, the scheme predicts the correct functional behaviour of the acceleration variance, as a function of $St$, as well as the presence of a minimum/maximum for the flatness of the acceleration of heavy/light particles, in good qualitative agreement with numerical data. We also show that the closure works well when applied to the Lagrangian evolution of particles using a stochastic surrogate for the underlying Eulerian velocity field. Our results support the conclusion that there exist important contributions to the statistics of the acceleration of inertial particles independent of the preferential sampling. For heavy particles we observe deviations between the predictions of the closure scheme and direct numerical simulations, at Stokes numbers of order unity. For light particles the deviation occurs for larger Stokes numbers.


2017 ◽  
Vol 830 ◽  
pp. 63-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew D. Bragg

In this paper we investigate, using theory and direct numerical simulations (DNS), the forward in time (FIT) and backward in time (BIT) probability density functions (PDFs) of the separation of inertial particle pairs in isotropic turbulence. In agreement with our earlier study (Bragg et al., Phys. Fluids, vol. 28, 2016, 013305), where we compared the FIT and BIT mean-square separations, we find that inertial particles separate much faster BIT than FIT, with the strength of the irreversibility depending upon the final/initial separation of the particle pair and their Stokes number $St$. However, we also find that the irreversibility shows up in subtle ways in the behaviour of the full PDF that it does not in the mean-square separation. In the theory, we derive new predictions, including a prediction for the BIT/FIT PDF for $St\geqslant O(1)$, and for final/initial separations in the dissipation regime. The prediction shows how caustics in the particle relative velocities in the dissipation range affect the scaling of the pair-separation PDF, leading to a PDF with an algebraically decaying tail. The predicted functional behaviour of the PDFs is universal, in that it does not depend upon the level of intermittency in the underlying turbulence. We also analyse the pair-separation PDFs for fluid particles at short times, and construct theoretical predictions using the multifractal formalism to describe the fluid relative velocity distributions. The theoretical and numerical results both suggest that the extreme events in the inertial particle-pair dispersion at the small scales are dominated by their non-local interaction with the turbulent velocity field, rather than due to the strong dissipation range intermittency of the turbulence itself. In fact, our theoretical results predict that for final/initial separations in the dissipation range, when $St\gtrsim 1$, the tails of the pair-separation PDFs decay faster as the Taylor Reynolds number $Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}}$ is increased, the opposite of what would be expected for fluid particles.


2017 ◽  
Vol 813 ◽  
pp. 205-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rohit Dhariwal ◽  
Sarma L. Rani ◽  
Donald L. Koch

The relative velocities and positions of monodisperse high-inertia particle pairs in isotropic turbulence are studied using direct numerical simulations (DNS), as well as Langevin simulations (LS) based on a probability density function (PDF) kinetic model for pair relative motion. In a prior study (Rani et al., J. Fluid Mech., vol. 756, 2014, pp. 870–902), the authors developed a stochastic theory that involved deriving closures in the limit of high Stokes number for the diffusivity tensor in the PDF equation for monodisperse particle pairs. The diffusivity contained the time integral of the Eulerian two-time correlation of fluid relative velocities seen by pairs that are nearly stationary. The two-time correlation was analytically resolved through the approximation that the temporal change in the fluid relative velocities seen by a pair occurs principally due to the advection of smaller eddies past the pair by large-scale eddies. Accordingly, two diffusivity expressions were obtained based on whether the pair centre of mass remained fixed during flow time scales, or moved in response to integral-scale eddies. In the current study, a quantitative analysis of the (Rani et al. 2014) stochastic theory is performed through a comparison of the pair statistics obtained using LS with those from DNS. LS consist of evolving the Langevin equations for pair separation and relative velocity, which is statistically equivalent to solving the classical Fokker–Planck form of the pair PDF equation. Langevin simulations of particle-pair dispersion were performed using three closure forms of the diffusivity – i.e. the one containing the time integral of the Eulerian two-time correlation of the seen fluid relative velocities and the two analytical diffusivity expressions. In the first closure form, the two-time correlation was computed using DNS of forced isotropic turbulence laden with stationary particles. The two analytical closure forms have the advantage that they can be evaluated using a model for the turbulence energy spectrum that closely matched the DNS spectrum. The three diffusivities are analysed to quantify the effects of the approximations made in deriving them. Pair relative-motion statistics obtained from the three sets of Langevin simulations are compared with the results from the DNS of (moving) particle-laden forced isotropic turbulence for $St_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D702}}=10,20,40,80$ and $Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}}=76,131$. Here, $St_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D702}}$ is the particle Stokes number based on the Kolmogorov time scale and $Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}}$ is the Taylor micro-scale Reynolds number. Statistics such as the radial distribution function (RDF), the variance and kurtosis of particle-pair relative velocities and the particle collision kernel were computed using both Langevin and DNS runs, and compared. The RDFs from the stochastic runs were in good agreement with those from the DNS. Also computed were the PDFs $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FA}(U|r)$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FA}(U_{r}|r)$ of relative velocity $U$ and of the radial component of relative velocity $U_{r}$ respectively, both PDFs conditioned on separation $r$. The first closure form, involving the Eulerian two-time correlation of fluid relative velocities, showed the best agreement with the DNS results for the PDFs.


1991 ◽  
Vol 227 ◽  
pp. 473-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Sarkar ◽  
G. Erlebacher ◽  
M. Y. Hussaini ◽  
H. O. Kreiss

It is shown that the dilatational terms that need to be modelled in compressible turbulence include not only the pressure-dilatation term but also another term - the compressible dissipation. The nature of the compressible velocity field, which generates these dilatational terms, is explored by asymptotic analysis of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations in the case of homogeneous turbulence. The lowest-order equations for the compressible field are solved and explicit expressions for some of the associated one-point moments are obtained. For low Mach numbers, the compressible mode has a fast timescale relative to the incompressible mode. Therefore, it is proposed that, in moderate Mach number homogeneous turbulence, the compressible component of the turbulence is in quasi-equilibrium with respect to the incompressible turbulence. A non-dimensional parameter which characterizes this equilibrium structure of the compressible mode is identified. Direct numerical simulations (DNS) of isotropic, compressible turbulence are performed, and their results are found to be in agreement with the theoretical analysis. A model for the compressible dissipation is proposed; the model is based on the asymptotic analysis and the direct numerical simulations. This model is calibrated with reference to the DNS results regarding the influence of compressibility on the decay rate of isotropic turbulence. An application of the proposed model to the compressible mixing layer has shown that the model is able to predict the dramatically reduced growth rate of the compressible mixing layer.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document