Investigating the parametric dependence of the impact of two-way coupling on inertial particle settling in turbulence

Abstract

Tom et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 947, 2022, p. A7) investigated the impact of two-way coupling (2WC) on particle settling velocities in turbulence. For the limited parameter choices explored, it was found that (i) 2WC substantially enhances particle settling compared with the one-way coupled case, even at low mass loading $\varPhi _m$ and (ii) preferential sweeping remains the mechanism responsible for the particles settling faster than the Stokes settling velocity in 2WC flows. However, significant alterations to the flow structure that can occur at higher mass loadings mean that the conclusions from Tom et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 947, 2022, p. A7) may not generalise. Indeed, even under very low mass loadings, the influence of 2WC on particle settling might persist, challenging the conventional assumption. We therefore explore a much broader portion of the parameter space, with simulations covering cases where the impact of 2WC on the global fluid statistics ranges from negligible to strong. We find that, even for $\varPhi _m=7.5\times 10^{-3}$ , 2WC can noticeably increase the settling for some choices of the Stokes and Froude numbers. When $\varPhi _m$ is large enough for the global fluid statistics to be strongly affected, we show that preferential sweeping continues to be the mechanism that enhances particle settling rates. Finally, we compare our results with previous numerical and experimental studies. While in some cases there is reasonable agreement, discrepancies exist even between different numerical studies and between different experiments. Future studies must seek to understand this before the discrepancies between numerical and experimental results can be adequately addressed.