Clustering of Rapidly Settling, Low-Inertia Particle Pairs in Isotropic Turbulence. II. Comparison of Theory and DNS

TL;DR

This paper compares a stochastic theory of particle clustering in turbulence with direct numerical simulation data, focusing on particles settling under gravity at different Froude numbers and Stokes numbers, showing good agreement especially at high gravity.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative validation of the stochastic clustering theory against DNS data for low-inertia, rapidly settling particles under gravity in isotropic turbulence.

Findings

Reasonable agreement between DNS and theory for clustering exponent at high gravity.

Clustering of low-Stokes-number particles is weakly anisotropic, consistent with DNS.

Theory accurately predicts the dependence of clustering on separation and angle.

Abstract

Part I of this study presented a stochastic theory for the clustering of monodisperse, rapidly settling, low-Stokes-number particle pairs in homogeneous isotropic turbulence. The theory involved the development of closure approximations for the drift and diffusion fluxes in the probability density function (PDF) equation for pair relative positions. In this Part II paper, the theory is quantitatively analyzed by comparing its predictions of particle clustering with data from direct numerical simulations (DNS) of isotropic turbulence containing particles settling under gravity. DNS were performed at a Taylor micro-scale Reynolds number $Re_\lambda = 77.76$ for three Froude numbers $Fr = \infty,~ 0.052,~ 0.006$. The Froude number $Fr$ is defined as the ratio of the Kolmogorov scale of acceleration and the magnitude of gravitational acceleration. Thus, $Fr = \infty$ corresponds to zero gravity, and $Fr = 0.006$ to the highest magnitude of gravity among the three DNS cases. For each $Fr$, particles of six Stokes numbers in the range $ 0.01 \le St_\eta \le 0.2$ were tracked in the DNS, and particle clustering quantified both as a function of separation and the spherical polar angle. %Here $St_\eta$~is the ratio of %the particle viscous relaxation time to the Kolmogorov time scale. We compared the DNS and theory values for the power-law exponent $\beta$ characterizing the dependence of clustering on separation. Reasonable agreement is seen between the DNS $\beta$'s for the $Fr = 0.006$ case and the theoretical predictions obtained using the second drift closure (referred to as DF2). Further, in conformity with the DNS, theory shows that the clustering of $St_\eta \ll 1$ particles is only weakly anisotropic.