Particle dispersion and deposition in direct numerical and large eddy simulations of vertical pipe flows

Abstract

The motion of dense particles in a turbulent gas flow has been studied by means of numerical simulations. The single-phase turbulent pipe flow was modelled using Direct Numerical Simulation and Large Eddy Simulation. At tube Reynolds numbers of 5300, 18300 and 42000 particles with dimensionless relaxation times ranging from 5 to 104 were released. Assuming the system to be dilute, the characteristics of particle dispersion, deposition and concentration distribution were studied under various conditions of gravity and lift. This study shows that for small particles the deposition process is governed by the properties of the near-wall layer where the wall-normal turbulence intensity is low, while for large inertial particles turbulent dispersion determines the chances for particles to hit the tube wall. The motion of the latter particles appears to scale properly with the Lagrangian integral time scale of the turbulence. Furthermore we demonstrated the segregation of particles towards the wall, as a result of particle-turbulence interaction.