The effect of Reynolds number on inertial particle dynamics in isotropic turbulence. Part II: Simulations with gravitational effects

TL;DR

This study investigates how gravity influences inertial particle behavior in isotropic turbulence through DNS, revealing effects on particle sampling, acceleration, relative velocities, clustering, and collision kernels across various flow conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of gravity's impact on inertial particles in turbulence, extending previous work by incorporating gravitational effects and developing a model for increased accelerations.

Findings

Gravity causes particles to sample flow more uniformly.

Gravity increases inertial particle accelerations.

Particle collision kernels are nearly Reynolds number independent at low and moderate Stokes numbers.

Abstract

In Part I of this study, we analyzed the motion of inertial particles in isotropic turbulence in the absence of gravity using direct numerical simulation (DNS). Here, in Part II, we introduce gravity and study its effect over a wide range of flow Reynolds numbers, Froude numbers, and particle Stokes numbers. We see that gravity causes particles to sample the flow more uniformly and reduces the time particles can spend interacting with the underlying turbulence. We also find that gravity tends to increase inertial particle accelerations, and we introduce a model to explain that effect. We then analyze the particle relative velocities and radial distribution functions (RDFs), which are generally seen to be independent of Reynolds number for low and moderate Kolmogorov-scale Stokes numbers $St$. We see that gravity causes particle relative velocities to decrease, and that the relative velocities have higher scaling exponents with gravity. We observe that gravity has a non-trivial effect on clustering, acting to decrease clustering at low $St$ and to increase clustering at high $St$. By considering the effect of gravity on the clustering mechanisms described in the theory of Zaichik & Alipchenkov (New J. Phys., 11:103018, 2009), we provide an explanation for this non-trivial effect of gravity. We also show that when the effects of gravity are accounted for in the theory of Zaichik & Alipchenkov, the results compare favorably with DNS. The relative velocities and RDFs exhibit considerable anisotropy at small separations, and this anisotropy is quantified using spherical harmonic functions. We use the relative velocities and the RDFs to compute the particle collision kernels, and find that the collision kernel remains as it was for the case without gravity, namely nearly independent of Reynolds number for low and moderate $St$.