Dynamics Of Inertial Particles Research Articles

Lagrangian coherent structures and inertial particle dynamics

In this work we investigate the dynamics of inertial particles using finite-time Lyapunov exponents (FTLE). In particular, we characterize the attractor and repeller structures underlying preferential concentration of inertial particles in terms of FTLE fields of the underlying carrier fluid. Inertial particles that are heavier than the ambient fluid (aerosols) attract onto ridges of the negative-time fluid FTLE. This negative-time FTLE ridge becomes a repeller for particles that are lighter than the carrier fluid (bubbles). We also examine the inertial FTLE (iFTLE) determined by the trajectories of inertial particles evolved using the Maxey-Riley equations with nonzero Stokes number and density ratio. Finally, we explore the low-pass filtering effect of Stokes number. These ideas are demonstrated on two-dimensional numerical simulations of the unsteady double-gyre flow.

Design and Development of an Instrumented Drifter for Lagrangian Measurements of Inertial Particle Dynamics in Breaking Waves

Understanding wave breaking phenomena is a challenging problem that still lacks satisfactory understanding. The present paper is concerned with the development of novel instrumentation adapted to obtain Lagrangian field measurements of essential variables that are intimately related to the physics of wave breaking. These miniature (6.4 cm) Lagrangian drifters are equipped with micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) inertial measurement units (IMUs) that record acceleration, angular rate and magnetic field data at rapid sampling rates (100 Hz). Using a quaternion-based sensor fusion algorithm, multiple sensor data is filtered in postprocessing procedures to obtain the best possible estimates of particle orientation and acceleration. We show that the developed instrumentation is able to collect meaningful data of inertial particle dynamics in a controlled laboratory flow, where the instrumented particle trajectories are benchmarked against an analytical representation of the flow. Results indicate that dead reckoning errors grow quadratically in time and that for a typical wave overturning event trajectory estimates are expected to remain within a radius $r 0.7 m with a 95% confidence level. Also, special attention is given to gyroscope reliability during the actual wave breaking process through an empirical evaluation of gyroscope performance in plunging waves. Angular rate measurements from two separate gyroscopes mounted inside the same drifter show high agreement leading to the conclusion that gyroscope errors arising from wave induced vibrations are negligible. Finally, we report on the first ever Lagrangian field observations of inertial particle dynamics in plunging waves with heights on the order of 2 m. We expect that further development of the technology and analysis tools presented herein could revolutionize our understanding of the hydrodynamics of breaking waves.

Inertial particle acceleration in strained turbulence

The dynamics of inertial particles in turbulence is modelled and investigated by means of direct numerical simulation of an axisymmetrically expanding homogeneous turbulent strained flow. This flow can mimic the dynamics of particles close to stagnation points. The influence of mean straining flow is explored by varying the dimensionless strain rate parameter $Sk_{0}/{\it\epsilon}_{0}$ from 0.2 to 20, where $S$ is the mean strain rate, $k_{0}$ and ${\it\epsilon}_{0}$ are the turbulent kinetic energy and energy dissipation rate at the onset of straining. We report results relative to the acceleration variances and probability density functions for both passive and inertial particles. A high mean strain is found to have a significant effect on the acceleration variance both directly by an increase in the frequency of the turbulence and indirectly through the coupling of the fluctuating velocity and the mean flow field. The influence of the strain on the normalized particle acceleration probability distribution functions is more subtle. For the case of a passive particle we can approximate the acceleration variance with the aid of rapid-distortion theory and obtain good agreement with simulation data. For the case of inertial particles we can write a formal expression for the accelerations. The magnitude changes in the inertial particle acceleration variance and the effect on the probability density function are then discussed in a wider context for comparable flows, where the effects of the mean flow geometry and of the anisotropy at small scales are present.

Particle Velocity and Acceleration in Turbulent Bent Pipe Flows

We study the dynamics of dilute micro-size inertial particles in turbulent curved pipe flows of different curvature by means of direct numerical simulations with one-way coupled Lagrangian particle tracking. The focus of this work is on the first and second order moments of the velocity and acceleration of the particulate phase, relevant statistics for any modelling effort, whereas the particle distribution is analysed in a previous companion paper. The aim is to understand the role of the cross-stream secondary motions (Dean vortices) on the particle dynamics. We identify the mean Dean vortices associated to the motion of the particles and show that these are moved towards the side-walls and, interestingly, more intense than those of the mean flow. Analysis of the streamwise particle flux reveals a substantial increase due to the secondary motions that brings particles towards the pipe core while moving them towards the outer bend. The in-plane particle flux, most intense in the flow viscous sub-layer along the side walls, increases with particle inertia and pipe curvature. The particle reflections at the outer bend, previously observed also in other strongly curved configurations, locally alter the particle axial and wall-normal velocity and increase turbulent kinetic energy.

Asymptotic Dynamics of Inertial Particles with Memory

Recent experimental and numerical observations have shown the significance of the Basset–Boussinesq memory term on the dynamics of small spherical rigid particles (or inertial particles) suspended in an ambient fluid flow. These observations suggest an algebraic decay to an asymptotic state, as opposed to the exponential convergence in the absence of the memory term. Here, we prove that the observed algebraic decay is a universal property of the Maxey–Riley equation. Specifically, the particle velocity decays algebraically in time to a limit that is $$\mathcal {O}(\epsilon )$$ -close to the fluid velocity, where $$0<\epsilon \ll 1$$ is proportional to the square of the ratio of the particle radius to the fluid characteristic length scale. These results follow from a sharp analytic upper bound that we derive for the particle velocity. For completeness, we also present a first proof of the global existence and uniqueness of mild solutions to the Maxey–Riley equation, a nonlinear system of fractional differential equations.

Effects of forcing time scale on the simulated turbulent flows and turbulent collision statistics of inertial particles

In this paper, we study systematically the effects of forcing time scale in the large-scale stochastic forcing scheme of Eswaran and Pope [“An examination of forcing in direct numerical simulations of turbulence,” Comput. Fluids 16, 257 (1988)] on the simulated flow structures and statistics of forced turbulence. Using direct numerical simulations, we find that the forcing time scale affects the flow dissipation rate and flow Reynolds number. Other flow statistics can be predicted using the altered flow dissipation rate and flow Reynolds number, except when the forcing time scale is made unrealistically large to yield a Taylor microscale flow Reynolds number of 30 and less. We then study the effects of forcing time scale on the kinematic collision statistics of inertial particles. We show that the radial distribution function and the radial relative velocity may depend on the forcing time scale when it becomes comparable to the eddy turnover time. This dependence, however, can be largely explained in terms of altered flow Reynolds number and the changing range of flow length scales present in the turbulent flow. We argue that removing this dependence is important when studying the Reynolds number dependence of the turbulent collision statistics. The results are also compared to those based on a deterministic forcing scheme to better understand the role of large-scale forcing, relative to that of the small-scale turbulence, on turbulent collision of inertial particles. To further elucidate the correlation between the altered flow structures and dynamics of inertial particles, a conditional analysis has been performed, showing that the regions of higher collision rate of inertial particles are well correlated with the regions of lower vorticity. Regions of higher concentration of pairs at contact are found to be highly correlated with the region of high energy dissipation rate.

Interactions between inertial particles and shocklets in compressible turbulent flow

Numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the dynamics of inertial particles being passively convected in a compressible homogeneous turbulence. Heavy and light particles exhibit very different types of non-uniform distributions due to their different behaviors near shocklets. Because of the relaxation nature of the Stokes drag, the heavy particles are decelerated mainly at downstream adjacent to the shocklets and form high-number-density clouds. The light particles are strongly decelerated by the added-mass effect and stay in the compression region for a relatively long time period. They cluster into thin filament structures near shocklets.

Dynamics of impurities in a three-dimensional volume-preserving map.

We study the dynamics of inertial particles in three-dimensional incompressible maps, as representations of volume-preserving flows. The impurity dynamics has been modeled, in the Lagrangian framework, by a six-dimensional dissipative bailout embedding map. The fluid-parcel dynamics of the base map is embedded in the particle dynamics governed by the map. The base map considered for the present study is the Arnold-Beltrami-Childress (ABC) map. We consider the behavior of the system both in the aerosol regime, where the density of the particle is larger than that of the base flow, as well as the bubble regime, where the particle density is less than that of the base flow. The phase spaces in both the regimes show rich and complex dynamics with three types of dynamical behaviors--chaotic structures, regular orbits, and hyperchaotic regions. In the one-action case, the aerosol regime is found to have periodic attractors for certain values of the dissipation and inertia parameters. For the aerosol regime of the two-action ABC map, an attractor merging and widening crisis is identified using the bifurcation diagram and the spectrum of Lyapunov exponents. After the crisis an attractor with two parts is seen, and trajectories hop between these parts with period 2. The bubble regime of the embedded map shows strong hyperchaotic regions as well as crisis induced intermittency with characteristic times between bursts that scale as a power law behavior as a function of the dissipation parameter. Furthermore, we observe a riddled basin of attraction and unstable dimension variability in the phase space in the bubble regime. The bubble regime in the one-action case shows similar behavior. This study of a simple model of impurity dynamics may shed light upon the transport properties of passive scalars in three-dimensional flows. We also compare our results with those seen earlier in two-dimensional flows.

Effect of Shape on Inertial Particle Dynamics in a Channel Flow

Particle dynamics in a channel flow are investigated using large eddy simulation and a Lagrangian particle tracking technique. Following validation of single-phase flow predictions against DNS results, fluid velocities are subsequently used to study the behaviour of particles of differing shape assuming one-way coupling between the fluid and the particles. The influence of shape- and orientation-dependent drag and lift forces on both the translational and rotational motion of the particles is accounted for to ensure accurate representation of the flow dynamics of non-spherical particles. The size of the particles studied was obtained based on an equivalent-volume sphere, and differing shapes were modelled using super-quadratic ellipsoid forms by varying their aspect ratio, with their orientation predicted using the incidence angle between the particle relative velocity and the particle principal axis. Results are presented for spherical, needle- and platelet-like particles at a number of different boundary layer locations along the wall-normal direction within the channel. The time evolution and probability density function of selected particle translational and rotational properties show a clear distinction between the behaviour of the various particles types, and indicate the significance of particle shape when modelling many practically relevant flows.

Observation of the sling effect

When cloud particles are small enough, they move with the turbulent air in the cloud. On the other hand, as particles become larger their inertia affects their motions, and they move differently than the air. These inertial dynamics impact cloud evolution and ultimately climate prediction, since clouds govern the Earth's energy balances. However, we lack a simple description of the dynamics. Falkovich et al describe theoretically a new dynamical mechanism called the ‘sling effect’ by which extreme events in the turbulent air cause idealized inertial cloud particles to break free from the airflow (Falkovich et al 2002 Nature 419 151). The sling effect thereafter causes particle trajectories to cross each other within isolated pockets in the flow, which increases the chance of collisions that forms larger particles. We combined experimental techniques that allow for precise control of a turbulent flow with three-dimensional tracking of multiple particles at unprecedented resolution. In this way, we could observe both the sling effect and crossing trajectories between real particles. We isolated the inertial sling dynamics from those caused by turbulent advection by conditionally averaging the data. We found the dynamics to be universal in terms of a local Stokes number that quantifies the local particle velocity gradients. We measured the probability density of this quantity, which shows that sharp gradients became more frequent as the global Stokes number increased. We observed that sharp compressive gradients in the airflow initiated the sling effect, and that thereafter gradients in the particle flow ran away and steepened in a way that produced singularities in the flow in finite time. During this process both the fluid motions and gravity became unimportant. The results underpin a framework for describing a crucial aspect of inertial particle dynamics and predicting collisions between particles.

Sticky elastic collisions

The effects of purely elastic collisions on the dynamics of heavy inertial particles are investigated in a three-dimensional random incompressible flow. It is shown that the statistical properties of interparticle separations and relative velocities are strongly influenced by the occurrence of sticky elastic collisions-particle pairs undergo a large number of collisions against each other during a small time interval over which, hence, they remain close to each other. A theoretical framework is provided for describing and quantifying this phenomenon and it is substantiated by numerical simulations. Furthermore, the impact of hydrodynamic interactions is discussed for such a system of colliding particles.

Stokes drift for inertial particles transported by water waves

We study the effect of surface gravity waves on the motion of inertial particles in an incompressible fluid. We perform analytical calculations based on perturbation expansions which allow us to predict the dynamics of inertial particles in the deep-water regime. We find that the presence of inertia leads to a non-negligible correction to the well-known horizontal Stokes drift velocity. Moreover, we find that the vertical sedimentation velocity is also affected by a drift induced by waves. The latter result may have some relevant consequences on the rate of sedimentation of particles of finite size. We underline that the vertical drift would also be observed in the (hypothetical) absence of the gravitational force. Kinematic numerical simulations are performed and the results are found to be in excellent agreement with the analytical predictions, even for values of the parameters beyond the perturbative limit.

Simultaneous 3D measurement of the translation and rotation of finite-size particles and the flow field in a fully developed turbulent water flow

We report a novel experimental technique that measures simultaneously in three dimensions the trajectories, the translation and the rotation of finite-size inertial particles together with the turbulent flow. The flow field is analyzed by tracking the temporal evolution of small fluorescent tracer particles. The inertial particles consist of a super-absorbent polymer that renders them index and density matched with water and thus invisible. The particles are marked by inserting at various locations tracer particles into the polymer. Translation and rotation, as well as the flow field around the particle are recovered dynamically from the analysis of the marker and tracer particle trajectories. We apply this technique to study the dynamics of inertial particles much larger in size (Rp/η ≈ 100) than the Kolmogorov length scale η in a von Kármán swirling water flow (Rλ ≈ 400). We show, using the mixed (particle/fluid) Eulerian second-order velocity structure function, that the interaction zone between the particle and the flow develops in a spherical shell of width 2Rp around the particle of radius Rp. This we interpret as an indication of a wake induced by the particle. This measurement technique has many additional advantages that will make it useful to address other problems such as particle collisions, dynamics of non-spherical solid objects, or even of wet granular matter.

Inertial-particle dynamics in turbulent flows: caustics, concentration fluctuations and random uncorrelated motion

We have performed numerical simulations of inertial particles in random model flows in the white-noise limit (at zero Kubo number, Ku = 0) and at finite Kubo numbers. Our results for the moments of relative inertial-particle velocities are in good agreement with recent theoretical results (Gustavsson and Mehlig ) based on the formation of phase-space singularities in the inertial-particle dynamics (caustics). We discuss the relation between three recent approaches describing the dynamics and spatial distribution of inertial particles suspended in turbulent flows: caustic formation, real-space singularities of the deformation tensor and random uncorrelated motion. We discuss how the phase- and real-space singularities are related. Their formation is well understood in terms of a local theory. We summarise the implications for random uncorrelated motion.

Direct numerical simulation of inertial particle entrainment in a shearless mixing layer

AbstractWe present the first computational study of the dynamics of inertial particles in a shearless turbulence mixing layer. We parametrize our direct numerical simulations to isolate the effects of turbulence, Reynolds number, particle inertia, and gravity on the entrainment process. By analysing particle concentrations, particle and fluid velocities, particle size distributions, and higher-order velocity moments, we explore the impact of particle inertia and gravity on the mechanism of turbulent mixing. We neglect thermodynamic processes, including phase changes between the drops and surrounding air, which is equivalent to assuming the air is saturated (i.e. 100 % humidity). Entrainment is found to be governed by the large scales of the flow and is relatively insensitive to the Reynolds number over the range considered. Our results show that both fluid and particle velocities exhibit intermittency and that gravity and turbulent diffusion interact in unexpected ways to dictate particle dynamics. An analysis of the temporal evolution of fluid and particle statistics suggests that particle concentration profiles and velocities are self-similar under certain circumstances. We also observe large fluctuations in particle concentrations resulting from entrainment and introduce a model to estimate the impact these fluctuations have on the radial distribution function, a statistic that is often used to quantify inertial particle clustering. Our study is both a computational counterpart to and an extension of the wind tunnel experiments by Gerashchenko, Good &amp; Warhaft (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 668, 2011, pp. 293–303) and Good, Gerashchenko, &amp; Warhaft (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 694, 2012, pp. 371–398). We find good agreement between these experimental studies and our computational results. We anticipate that a better understanding of the role of gravity and turbulence in inertial particle entrainment will lead to improved cloud evolution predictions.

Detection of turbulent thermal diffusion of particles in numerical simulations

The phenomenon of turbulent thermal diffusion in temperature-stratified turbulence causing a non-diffusive turbulent flux (i.e., non-counter-gradient transport) of inertial and non-inertial particles in the direction of the turbulent heat flux is found using direct numerical simulations (DNS). In simulations with and without gravity, this phenomenon is found to cause a peak in the particle number density around the minimum of the mean fluid temperature for Stokes numbers less than 1, where the Stokes number is the ratio of particle Stokes time to turbulent Kolmogorov time at the viscous scale. Turbulent thermal diffusion causes the formation of inhomogeneities in the spatial distribution of inertial particles whose scale is large in comparison with the integral scale of the turbulence. The strength of this effect is maximum for Stokes numbers around unity, and decreases again for larger values. The dynamics of inertial particles is studied using Lagrangian modelling in forced temperature-stratified turbulence, whereas non-inertial particles and the fluid are described using DNS in an Eulerian framework.

Intrinsic filtering errors of Lagrangian particle tracking in LES flow fields

Large-eddy simulation (LES) of two-phase turbulent flows exhibits quantitative differences in particle statistics if compared to direct numerical simulation (DNS) which, in the context of the present study, is considered the exact reference case. Differences are primarily due to filtering, a fundamental intrinsic feature of LES. Filtering the fluid velocity field yields approximate computation of the forces acting on particles and, in turn, trajectories that are inaccurate when compared to those of DNS. In this paper, we focus precisely on the filtering error for which we quantify a lower bound. To this aim, we use a DNS database of inertial particle dispersion in turbulent channel flow and we perform a priori tests in which the error purely due to filtering is singled out removing error accumulation effects, which would otherwise lead to progressive divergence between DNS and LES particle trajectories. By applying filters of different type and width at varying particle inertia, we characterize the statistical properties of the filtering error as a function of the wall distance. Results show that filtering error is stochastic and has a non-Gaussian distribution. In addition, the distribution of the filtering error depends strongly on the wall-normal coordinate being maximum in the buffer region. Our findings provide insight on the effect of sub-grid scale velocity field on the force driving the particles, and establish the requirements that any closure model aimed at recovering sub-grid scale effects on the dynamics of inertial particles must satisfy.

Dynamics of inertial particles in a random flow with strong permanent shear

We consider advection of small inertial particles by a random fluid flow with a strong steady shear component. It is known that inertial particles suspended in a random flow can exhibit clusterization even if the flow is incompressible. We study this phenomenon through statistical characteristics of a separation vector between two particles. As usual in a random flow, moments of distance between particles grow exponentially. We calculate the rates of this growth using saddle-point approximation in path-integral formalism. We also calculate the correction to the Lyapunov exponent due to small inertia by perturbation theory expansion.

Particle-laden jets: particle distribution and back-reaction on the flow

DNS data of particle-laden jets are discussed both in the one- and two-way coupling regimes. Dynamics of inertial particles in turbulent jets is characterized by an anomalous transport that leads to the formation of particle concentration peaks along the jet axis. Larger is the particle inertia farther the peak location occurs. The controlling parameter is found to be the local large-scale Stokes number which decreases quadratically with the axial distance and is order one in coincidence of the peaks. The centerline mean particle velocity is characterized by two scaling laws. The former occurs upstream the location where the Stokes number is order one, and is linear in the axial distance with negative coefficient. The latter, occurring downstream where the local Stokes number is small, coincides with that of the centerline mean fluid velocity. This behavior affects the development of the particle-laden jet when the mass load of the particulate phase increases and two-way coupling effects become relevant. Two distinct behaviors for the jet development are found behind and beyond the location of unity local Stokes number leading to different scaling laws for the mean centerline fluid velocity.

Inertial-particle dispersion and diffusion

We analytically investigate the dynamics of inertial particles in incompressible flows in the limit of small but finite inertia, focusing on two specific instances. First, we study the concentration of particles continuously emitted from a point source with a given exit velocity distribution. The anisotropy of the latter turns out to be a necessary factor for the presence of a correction (with respect to the corresponding tracer case) at order square root of the Stokes number. Secondly, by means of a multiple-scale expansion, we analyse the particle effective diffusivity, and in particular its dependence on Brownian diffusivity, gravity effects and particle-to-fluid density ratio. In both cases, we obtain forced advection–diffusion equations for auxiliary quantities in the physical space, thus simplifying the problem from the full phase space to a system which can easily be solved numerically.