Clustering and Turbophoresis in a Shear Flow without Walls

Abstract

We investigate the spatial distribution of inertial particles suspended in the bulk of a turbulent inhomogeneous flow. By means of direct numerical simulations of particle trajectories transported by the turbulent Kolmogorov flow, we study large and small scale mechanisms inducing inhomogeneities in the distribution of heavy particles. We discuss turbophoresis both for large and weak inertia, providing heuristic arguments for the functional form of the particle density profile. In particular, we argue and numerically confirm that the turbophoretic effect is maximal for particles of intermediate inertia. Our results indicate that small-scale fractal clustering and turbophoresis peak in different ranges in the particles' Stokes number and the separation of the two peaks increases with the flow's Reynolds number.

13 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Heavy particle concentration in turbulence at dissipative and inertial scales
• Localization-delocalization transitions in turbophoresis of inertial particles
• Multiple time-scale approach for a system of Brownian particles in a non-uniform temperature field

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Turbophoresis in forced inhomogeneous turbulence
• Particle-laden two-dimensional elastic turbulence
• Preferential Sampling of Elastic Chains in Turbulent Flows
• Phoresis in turbulent flows
• Drag enhancement in a dusty Kolmogorov flow
• Experimental study of turbulent thermal diffusion of particles in an inhomogeneous forced convective turbulence
• Instability of a dusty Kolmogorov flow
• Experimental investigation of turbulence and turbulent thermal diffusion in strongly inhomogeneous and anisotropic forced convection
• Inhomogeneous preferential concentration of inertial particles in turbulent channel flow