Equilibrium-eulerian les model for turbulent poly-dispersed particle-laden flow

Abstract

An efficient Eulerian method for poly-dispersed particles in turbulent flows is implemented, verified and validated for a channel flow. The approach couples a mixture model with a quadrature-based moment method for the particle size distribution in a LES framework, augmented by an approximate deconvolution method to reconstructs the unfiltered velocity. The particle velocity conditioned on particle size is calculated with an equilibrium model, valid for low Stokes numbers. A population balance equation is solved with the direct quadrature method of moments, that efficiently represents the continuous particle size distribution. In this first study particulate processes are not considered and the capability of the model to properly describe particle transport is investigated for a turbulent channel flow. First, single-phase LES are validated through comparison with DNS. Then predictions for the two-phase system, with particles characterised by Stokes numbers ranging from 0.2 to 5, are compared with Lagrangian DNS in terms of particle velocity and accumulation at the walls. Since this phenomenon (turbophoresis) is driven by turbulent fluctuations and depends strongly on the particle Stokes number, the approximation of the particle size distribution, the choice of the sub-grid scale model and the use of an approximate deconvolution method are important to obtain good results. Our method can be considered as a fast and efficient alternative to classical Lagrangian methods or Eulerian multi-fluid models in which poly-dispersity is usually neglected.