Turbulence Modulation of Polydisperse Particles in a Square Particle-Laden Jet: Numerical Investigation

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2012-05-01
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Virginia Tech
Abstract

The purpose of this study is to numerically investigate the turbulence modulation of polydisperse particles in a square particle-laden jet. Turbulence modulation describes the effects of fluctuating velocity and intensity when the particles and continuous fluid interact in a turbulent flow field. The rate at which turbulence modulation is altered is dependent upon parameters such as particle size, mass loading, Stokes number, coupling, volume fraction and mechanisms of turbulence modulation. This study modifies the analytical model developed by Yarin and Hetsroni (1993) to account for the transitional drag regime for coarse polydisperse particles. The particles under study are dilute, inert and spherical, with relatively high Stokes numbers, and classified as having two-way coupling with the fluid. The new analytical model is compared to numerical results using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software FLUENT (ANSYS, Inc.). The turbulence model employed is the standard k-ε model. This study will analyze the effects of varying mass content and particle ratios to investigate how turbulence modulation is influenced. The new model and the CFD results show good agreement in the cases where the mass contents of each particle size are equal. This study will also look into the effects of polydispersion, and the concentration distribution, for indoor air applications. It was found that, in certain cases, the monodisperse assumption slightly over-predicts the concentration distribution in the enclosed region.

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square particle-laden jet, polydispersion, turbulent intensity
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