Eulerian approach for erosion induced by particle-laden impinging jets

Abstract

Particle dispersion and erosion play an important role in various engineering applications, particularly in impinging jet flows. This study presents a new Eulerian method for characterizing these phenomena in axisymmetric, laminar, and turbulent jets, impinging and transiently eroding a flat wall. The Eulerian mass and momentum conservation equations are solved assuming a one-way coupling between the flow and the particles. The carrier flow boundary layer velocity profiles in the laminar case are validated with analytical solutions. The particle calculation involves two stages, incident and reflected particles, connected via a restitution model. The reflected particles’ results offer insights into secondary erosion areas but are not used for the main erosion calculations. Subsequently, erosion at the eroded surface is computed using an empirical erosion model, followed by the displacement of computational nodes using the linear-elastic, small-strain deformation equations, all of which are solved transiently. The solutions reveal the spatial particle concentrations and momentum for different Stokes numbers: smaller Stokes particles follow the carrier flow streamlines, medium Stokes particles deviate, forming a W-shaped erosion profile, while the largest Stokes particles create a U-shaped profile. This numerical model offers a computationally efficient framework for CFD-based transient erosion calculation due to its Eulerian implementation.