Direct numerical simulation of a near-field particle-laden plane turbulent jet.

Abstract

The present study investigates the gas-particle two-phase flow in the turbulent plane jet by solving the two-dimensional and compressible flow fields numerically using direct-numerical-simulation technique. The flow fields are spatially developing, but we focus our study on the evolution of coherent vortex structures and dispersion patterns of particles in the near field at different Stokes numbers. The initial symmetric mode of flow changes its shape to the asymmetric mode after about three convection periods as the flow moves downstream. The concessive paring processes between two and three vortex structures are observed. The predicted mean velocity profiles show self-similar behavior and coincide well with previous experimental data. The profiles of turbulent intensity and Reynolds shear stress also display self-similar characteristics in the further downstream regions. The local-focusing phenomena of particles occur in the quasicoherent dispersion structure of particles. The higher density distribution at the outer boundary of large-scale vortex structure characterizes the dispersion pattern of particles at the Stokes numbers of order of unity. Furthermore, these particles disperse largely along the lateral direction and show the nonuniform distribution of concentration. For the particles at the Stokes number of 0.01, the dispersion along the lateral direction is considerable due to the small aerodynamics response time, but the particles are distributed evenly in the flow field. Particles at the Stokes numbers of 10 and 50 disperse much less along the lateral direction with the even density distribution. These results support the previous conclusions on the dispersion of particles in the free shear flows.