Effects of specularity and particle-particle restitution coefficients on the recirculation characteristics of dispersed gas-particle flows through a sudden expansion

Abstract

We numerically investigate the effects of restitution and specularity coefficients on the characteristics of dispersed gas-particle flows through a sudden expansion. The studies are carried out using an indigenous finite volume flow solver in a collocated framework with two-fluid model. Parametric studies are performed to gain insights into the differences in recirculation patterns that arise due to variations in restitution and specularity coefficients. The simulations show that particle-particle interactions, quantified by restitution coefficient (e) have a greater impact on recirculation characteristics than particle-wall interactions, which are quantified by specularity coefficient (ϕ). Studies reveal that the recirculation lengths tend to decrease as particle collisions become more elastic (as e tends to unity) while they increase, as the value of ϕ increases. However, the changes in recirculation length are very gradual and less pronounced when only particle-wall interactions are considered as compared to particle-particle interactions. From the range of parametric variations studied in this work, the maximum recirculation length has been found when the value of ϕ is maximum and that of e is minimum.