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Inertial particle relative velocity statistics in homogeneous isotropic turbulence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2012

Juan P. L. C. Salazar  and
Lance R. Collins
Juan P. L. C. Salazar
Affiliation:
Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-7501, USA International Collaboration for Turbulence Research
Lance R. Collins*
Affiliation:
Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-7501, USA International Collaboration for Turbulence Research
*
†Email address for correspondence: lc246@cornell.edu
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Abstract

In the present study, we investigate the scaling of relative velocity structure functions, of order two and higher, for inertial particles, both in the dissipation range and the inertial subrange using direct numerical simulations (DNS). Within the inertial subrange our findings show that contrary to the well-known attenuation in the tails of the one-point acceleration probability density function (p.d.f.) with increasing inertia (Bec et al., J. Fluid Mech., vol. 550, 2006, pp. 349–358), the opposite occurs with the velocity structure function at sufficiently large Stokes numbers. We observe reduced scaling exponents for the structure function when compared to those of the fluid, and correspondingly broader p.d.f.s, similar to what occurs with a passive scalar. DNS allows us to isolate the two effects of inertia, namely biased sampling of the velocity field, a result of preferential concentration, and filtering, i.e. the tendency for the inertial particle velocity to attenuate the velocity fluctuations in the fluid. By isolating these effects, we show that sampling is playing the dominant role for low-order moments of the structure function, whereas filtering accounts for most of the scaling behaviour observed with the higher-order structure functions in the inertial subrange. In the dissipation range, we see evidence of so-called ‘crossing trajectories’, the ‘sling effect’ or ‘caustics’, and find good agreement with the theory put forth by Wilkinson et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 97, 2006, 048501) and Falkovich & Pumir (J. Atmos. Sci., vol. 64, 2007, 4497) for Stokes numbers greater than 0.5. We also look at the scaling exponents within the context of the model proposed by Bec et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 646, 2010, pp. 527–536). Another interesting finding is that inertial particles at low Stokes numbers sample regions of higher kinetic energy than the fluid particle field, the converse occurring at high Stokes numbers. The trend at low Stokes numbers is predicted by the theory of Chun et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 536, 2005, 219–251). This work is relevant to modelling the particle collision rate (Sundaram & Collins, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 335, 1997, pp. 75–109), and highlights the interesting array of phenomena induced by inertia.

JFM classification

Turbulent Flows: Isotropic turbulence Multiphase and Particle-laden Flows: Particle/fluid flow Turbulent Flows: Turbulence simulation
Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 696 , 10 April 2012 , pp. 45 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

‡

Present address: Centro de Engenharia da Mobilidade, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Joinville, Brazil.

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