Preferential concentration of free-falling heavy particles in turbulence

Abstract

We present a sweep-stick mechanism for heavy particles transported by a turbulent flow under the action of gravity. Direct numerical simulations show that these particles preferentially explore regions of the flow with close to zero Lagrangian acceleration. However, the actual Lagrangian acceleration of the fluid elements where particles accumulate is not zero, and has a dependence on the Stokes number, the gravity acceleration, and the settling velocity of the particles.

arXiv comment8 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (6)

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• Preferential concentration of inertial sub-kolmogorov particles. The roles of mass loading of particles, Stokes and Reynolds numbers
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Cited by in corpus (9)

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• The effect of particle anisotropy on the modulation of turbulent flows
• Clustering of vector nulls in homogeneous isotropic turbulence
• Settling and clustering of particles of moderate mass density in turbulence
• Markov property of Lagrangian turbulence
• The effect of gravity on bubble-particle collisions in turbulence
• Resolved and subgrid-scale crossing trajectory effects in Eulerian large eddy simulations of polydisperse droplet transport
• Evidence of preferential sweeping during snow settling in atmospheric turbulence