PDF method for population balance in turbulent reactive flow

Abstract

Turbulent reactive flows with particle formation, such as soot formation and precipitation, are characterized by complex interactions between turbulence, scalar transport, particle formation and particle transport and inter-particle events such as coagulation. The effect of formation, growth and coagulation on the particle size distribution (PSD) must be modelled by the population balance equation (PBE). While the PBE has been studied extensively in homogeneous systems and, recently, in simple flows, its coupling with turbulent reactive flows poses a wealth of new questions. Processes such as nucleation, growth and coagulation are described by kinetic laws that link them to the local concentrations of the reactive scalars, which are random in a turbulent flow. This accounts for additional mechanisms that induce randomness and fluctuations to the particle concentration and PSD. Furthermore, conventional RANS closure of the coagulation term PDE (which describes the evolution of the PSD) leads to unknown correlations. In this work a new pdf approach is developed, based on the transport of the joint pdf of reactive scalars and particle number densities at different sizes, which overcomes the additional closure problems. It is also shown how the pdf method can be solved numerically via Monte-Carlo methods, and this is demonstrated via two applications in a partially stirred reactor: precipitation via nucleation–growth and coagulation. In each case the pdf method is compared with models that neglect correlations at various levels, and it is demonstrated that the interaction of turbulence with particle formation mechanisms accounts for significant deviations in the PSD.