Lagrangian Statistics of Droplet Velocity and Acceleration in Isotropic Turbulence

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Balaji Gopalan ◽  
Edwin Malkiel ◽  
Joseph Katz

The addition of dispersants, water and oil soluble surfactants that lower the interfacial tension of the crude oil, along with oceanic turbulence can breakdown oil spills into droplets. Knowledge of the dispersion rate of these droplets by oceanic turbulence is essential for the development of better models to assess the environmental impact of spills. The objective of this research is to study, experimentally, the dispersion of oil droplets in turbulent flows. The measurements are performed in a specialized laboratory facility that enables generation of carefully controlled, isotropic, homogeneous turbulence at a wide range of fully characterized intensities and length scales. The oil dispersion is visualized using high-speed inline digital holographic cinematography. Holographic data has been analyzed and Lagrangian statistics of droplet velocity, dispersion and acceleration has been calculated. As the relative size of the droplet diameter to the Kolmogorov length scale and its Stokes number increases, the acceleration autocorrelation shifts from dropping to zero faster than the fluid particles to slower.

Author(s):  
Yiannis Andreopoulos ◽  
Amir H. Danesh-Yazdi ◽  
Oleg Goushcha ◽  
Niell Elvin

Turbulent flows carry mechanical energy distributed over a range of temporal and spatial scales and their interaction with a thin immersed piezoelectric beam results in a strain field which generates electrical charge. This energy harvesting method can be used for developing self-powered electronic devices such as flow sensors. In the present experimental work, various energy harvesters were placed in a turbulent boundary layer or inside a decaying flow field of homogeneous and isotropic turbulence. The role of large instantaneous turbulent structures in this rather complex fluid-structure interaction is discussed in interpreting the electrical output results. The forces acting on the vibrating beams have been measured dynamically and a theory has been developed which incorporates the effects of mean local velocity, turbulence intensity, the relative size of the beam’s length to the integral length scale of turbulence, the structural properties of the beam and the electrical properties of the active piezoelectric layer to provide reasonable estimates of the mean electrical power output. Experiments have been carried out in which these fluidic harvesters are immersed first in inhomogeneous turbulence like that encountered in boundary layers developing over solid walls and homogeneous and isotopic turbulence for which a simplified analytical description exists. It was found that there is a non-linear effect of turbulence length scales on the power output of the fluidic harvesters.


2017 ◽  
Vol 813 ◽  
pp. 1156-1175 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Pouransari ◽  
H. Kolla ◽  
J. H. Chen ◽  
A. Mani

In this study we consider particle-laden turbulent flows with significant heat transfer between the two phases due to sustained heating of the particle phase. The sustained heat source can be due to particle heating via an external radiation source as in the particle-based solar receivers or an exothermic reaction in the particles. Our objective is to investigate the effects of fluid heating by a dispersed phase on the turbulence evolution. An important feature in such settings is the preferential clustering phenomenon which is responsible for non-uniform distribution of particles in the fluid medium. Particularly, when the ratio of particle inertial relaxation time to the turbulence time scale, namely the Stokes number, is of order unity, particle clustering is maximized, leading to thin regions of heat source similar to the flames in turbulent combustion. However, unlike turbulent combustion, a particle-laden system involves a wide range of clustering scales that is mainly controlled by particle Stokes number. To study these effects, we considered a decaying homogeneous isotropic turbulence laden with heated particles over a wide range of Stokes numbers. Using a low-Mach-number formulation for the fluid energy equation and a Lagrangian framework for particle tracking, we performed numerical simulations of this coupled system. We then applied a high-fidelity framework to perform spectral analysis of kinetic energy in a variable-density fluid. Our results indicate that particle heating can considerably influence the turbulence cascade. We show that the pressure-dilatation term introduces turbulent kinetic energy at a range of scales consistent with the scales observed in particle clusters. This energy is then transferred to high wavenumbers via the energy transfer term. For low and moderate levels of particle heating intensity, quantified by a parameter $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$ defined as the ratio of eddy time to mean temperature increase time, turbulence modification occurs primarily in the dilatational modes of the velocity field. However, as the heating intensity is increased, the energy transfer term converts energy from dilatational modes to divergence-free modes. Interestingly, as the heating intensity is increased, the net modification of turbulence by heating is observed dominantly in divergence-free modes; the portion of turbulence modification in dilatational modes diminishes with higher heating. Moreover, we show that modification of divergence-free modes is more pronounced at intermediate Stokes numbers corresponding to the maximum particle clustering. We also present the influence of heating intensity on the energy transfer term itself. This term crosses over from negative to positive values beyond a threshold wavenumber, showing the cascade of energy from large scales to small scales. The threshold is shown to shift to higher wavenumbers with increasing heating, indicating a growth in the total energy transfer from large scales to small scales. The fundamental energy transfer analysis presented in this paper provides insightful guidelines for subgrid-scale modelling and large-eddy simulation of heated particle-laden turbulence.


2021 ◽  
Vol 933 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kee Onn Fong ◽  
Filippo Coletti

In collisional gas–solid flows, dense particle clusters are often observed that greatly affect the transport properties of the mixture. The characterisation and prediction of this phenomenon are challenging due to limited optical access, the wide range of scales involved and the interplay of different mechanisms. Here, we consider a laboratory setup in which particles fall against upward-moving air in a square vertical duct: a classic configuration in riser reactors. The use of non-cohesive, monodispersed, spherical particles and the ability to independently vary the solid volume fraction ( $\varPhi _V = 0.1\,\% - 0.8\,\%$ ) and the bulk airflow Reynolds number ( $Re_{bulk} = 300 - 1200$ ) allows us to isolate key elements of the multiphase dynamics, providing the first laboratory observation of cluster-induced turbulence. Above a threshold $\varPhi _V$ , the system exhibits intense fluctuations of concentration and velocity, as measured by high-speed imaging via a backlighting technique which returns optically depth-averaged fields. The space–time autocorrelations reveal dense and persistent mesoscale structures falling faster than the surrounding particles and trailing long wakes. These are shown to be the statistical footprints of visually observed clusters, mostly found in the vicinity of the walls. They are identified via a percolation analysis, tracked in time, and characterised in terms of size, shape, location and velocity. Larger clusters are denser, longer-lived and have greater descent velocity. At the present particle Stokes number, the threshold $\varPhi _V \sim 0.5$ % (largely independent from $Re_{bulk}$ ) is consistent with the view that clusters appear when the typical interval between successive collisions is shorter than the particle response time.


Author(s):  
Mithun Das ◽  
Souvick Chatterjee ◽  
Swarnendu Sen ◽  
Achintya Mukhopadhyay

Atomization of fuel is a key integral part for efficient combustion in gas turbines. This demands a thorough investigation of the spray characteristics using innovative and useful spray diagnostics techniques. In this work, an experimental study is carried out on commercial hollow cone nozzle (Lechler) using laser diagnostics techniques. A hollow cone spray is useful in many applications because of its ability to produce fine droplets. But apart from the droplet diameter, the velocity field in the spray is also an important parameter to monitor and has been addressed in this work. Kerosene is used as the test fuel which is recycled using a plunger pump providing a variation in the injection pressure from 100psi to 300psi. An innovative diagnostic technique used in this study is through illumination of the spray with a continuous laser sheet and capturing the same with a high speed camera. A ray of laser beam is converted to a planer sheet using a lens combination which is used to illuminate a cross section of the hollow cone spray. This provides a continuous planar light source which allows capturing high speed images at 285 fps. The high speed images, thus obtained are processed to understand the non-linearity associated with disintegration of the spray into fine droplets. The images are shown to follow a fractal representation and the fractal dimension is found to increase with rise in injection pressure. Also, using PDPA, the droplet diameter distribution is calculated at different spatial and radial locations at wide range of pressure.


2014 ◽  
Vol 757 ◽  
pp. 550-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Biferale ◽  
A. S. Lanotte ◽  
R. Scatamacchia ◽  
F. Toschi

AbstractResults from direct numerical simulations (DNS) of particle relative dispersion in three-dimensional homogeneous and isotropic turbulence at Reynolds number $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}{\mathit{Re}}_{\lambda } \sim 300$ are presented. We study point-like passive tracers and heavy particles, at Stokes number $\mathit{St}=0.6,1$ and 5. Particles are emitted from localised sources, in bunches of thousands, periodically in time, allowing an unprecedented statistical accuracy to be reached, with a total number of events for two-point observables of the order of ${10^{11}}$. The right tail of the probability density function (PDF) for tracers develops a clear deviation from Richardson’s self-similar prediction, pointing to the intermittent nature of the dispersion process. In our numerical experiment, such deviations are manifest once the probability to measure an event becomes of the order of – or rarer than – one part over one million, hence the crucial importance of a large dataset. The role of finite-Reynolds-number effects and the related fluctuations when pair separations cross the boundary between viscous and inertial range scales are discussed. An asymptotic prediction based on the multifractal theory for inertial range intermittency and valid for large Reynolds numbers is found to agree with the data better than the Richardson theory. The agreement is improved when considering heavy particles, whose inertia filters out viscous scale fluctuations. By using the exit-time statistics we also show that events associated with pairs experiencing unusually slow inertial range separations have a non-self-similar PDF.


Author(s):  
Mithun Das ◽  
Souvick Chatterjee ◽  
Achintya Mukhopadhyay ◽  
Swarnendu Sen

Atomization of fuel is a key integral part for efficient combustion in gas turbines. This demands a thorough investigation of the spray characteristics using innovative and useful spray diagnostics techniques. In this work, an experimental study is carried out on a commercial hollow cone nozzle (Lechler) using laser diagnostics techniques. A hollow cone spray is useful in many applications because of its ability to produce fine droplets. But apart from the droplet diameter, the velocity field in the spray is also an important parameter to monitor and has been addressed in this work. Kerosene is used as the test fuel, which is recycled using a plunger pump providing a variation in the injection pressure from 100 to 300 psi. An innovative diagnostic technique used in this study is through illumination of the spray with a continuous laser sheet and capturing the same with a high speed camera. A ray of a laser beam is converted to a planer sheet using a lens combination which is used to illuminate a cross section of the hollow cone spray. This provides a continuous planar light source which allows capturing high speed images at 285 fps. The high speed images thus obtained are processed to understand the nonlinearity associated with disintegration of the spray into fine droplets. The images are shown to follow a fractal representation and the fractal dimension is found to increase with rise in injection pressure. Also, using PDPA, the droplet diameter distribution is calculated at different spatial and radial locations at a wide range of pressure.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Steven A. E. Miller

Aerodynamic heating due to turbulence significantly affects the operation of high-speed vehicles and the entrainment of fluid by turbulent plumes. In this paper, the heat generated and convected by fluid turbulence is examined by rearranging the Navier-Stokes equations into a single equation for the fluctuating dependent variables external to unsteady chaotic motions. This equation is similar to the nonhomogeneous heat equation where sources are terms resulting from this rearrangement. Mean and fluctuating quantities are introduced, and under certain circumstances, a heat equation for the fluctuating density results with corresponding mean and fluctuating source terms. The resultant equation is similar to Lighthill’s acoustic analogy and is a “heat analogy.” A solution is obtained with the use of Green’s function as long as the observer is located outside the region of chaotic motion. Predictions for the power spectrum are shown for high Reynolds number isotropic turbulence. The power spectrum decays as the inverse of the wavenumber of the turbulent velocity fluctuations. The developed theory can easily be applied to other turbulent flows if the statistics of unsteady motion can be estimated.


2016 ◽  
Vol 796 ◽  
pp. 113-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Quadros ◽  
Krishnendu Sinha ◽  
Johan Larsson

High-speed turbulent flows with shock waves are characterized by high localized surface heat transfer rates. Computational predictions are often inaccurate due to the limitations in modelling of the unclosed turbulent energy flux in the highly non-equilibrium regions of shock interaction. In this paper, we investigate the turbulent energy flux generated when homogeneous isotropic turbulence passes through a nominally normal shock wave. We use linear interaction analysis where the incoming turbulence is idealized as being composed of a collection of two-dimensional planar vorticity waves, and the shock wave is taken to be a discontinuity. The nature of the postshock turbulent energy flux is predicted to be strongly dependent on the angle of incidence of the incoming waves. The energy flux correlation is also decomposed into its vortical, entropy and acoustic contributions to understand its rapid non-monotonic variation behind the shock. Three-dimensional statistics, calculated by integrating two-dimensional results over a prescribed upstream energy spectrum, are compared with available data from direct numerical simulations. A detailed budget of the governing equation is also considered in order to gain insight into the underlying physics.


2017 ◽  
Vol 820 ◽  
pp. 61-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel L. Albernaz ◽  
M. Do-Quang ◽  
J. C. Hermanson ◽  
G. Amberg

The heat and mass transfer of deformable droplets in turbulent flows is crucial to a wide range of applications, such as cloud dynamics and internal combustion engines. This study investigates a single droplet undergoing phase change in isotropic turbulence using numerical simulations with a hybrid lattice Boltzmann scheme. Phase separation is controlled by a non-ideal equation of state and density contrast is taken into consideration. Droplet deformation is caused by pressure and shear stress at the droplet interface. The statistics of thermodynamic variables are quantified and averaged over both the liquid and vapour phases. The occurrence of evaporation and condensation is correlated to temperature fluctuations, surface tension variation and turbulence intensity. The temporal spectra of droplet deformations are analysed and related to the droplet surface area. Different modes of oscillation are clearly identified from the deformation power spectrum for low Taylor Reynolds number $Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}}$, whereas nonlinearities are produced with the increase of $Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}}$, as intermediate frequencies are seen to overlap. As an outcome, a continuous spectrum is observed, which shows a decrease in the power spectrum that scales as ${\sim}f^{-3}$. Correlations between the droplet Weber number, deformation parameter, fluctuations of the droplet volume and thermodynamic variables are also developed.


Author(s):  
E.D. Wolf

Most microelectronics devices and circuits operate faster, consume less power, execute more functions and cost less per circuit function when the feature-sizes internal to the devices and circuits are made smaller. This is part of the stimulus for the Very High-Speed Integrated Circuits (VHSIC) program. There is also a need for smaller, more sensitive sensors in a wide range of disciplines that includes electrochemistry, neurophysiology and ultra-high pressure solid state research. There is often fundamental new science (and sometimes new technology) to be revealed (and used) when a basic parameter such as size is extended to new dimensions, as is evident at the two extremes of smallness and largeness, high energy particle physics and cosmology, respectively. However, there is also a very important intermediate domain of size that spans from the diameter of a small cluster of atoms up to near one micrometer which may also have just as profound effects on society as “big” physics.


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