Turbulence modulations and drag reduction by inertialess spheroids in turbulent channel flow

TL;DR

This study uses simulations to show that inertialess spheroids, including fibers and disks, can modulate turbulence and reduce drag in channel flows, with different efficiencies based on shape.

Contribution

It demonstrates for the first time that tiny inertialess spheroids of various shapes can induce turbulence modulation and drag reduction in turbulent flows.

Findings

Both fibers and disks cause turbulence modulation and drag reduction.

Disks have a less pronounced drag reduction effect than fibers.

Spheroids weaken quasistreamwise vortices, reducing Reynolds shear stress.

Abstract

Previous studies on nonspherical particle-fluid interaction were mostly confined to elongated fiber-like particles, which were observed to induce turbulence drag reduction. However, with the presence of tiny disk-like particles how wall turbulence is modulated and whether drag reduction occurs are still unknown. Motivated by those open questions, we performed two-way coupled direct numerical simulations of inertialess spheroids in turbulent channel flow by an Eulerian-Lagrangian approach. The additional stress accounts for the feedback from inertialess spheroids on the fluid phase. The results demonstrate that both rigid elongated fibers (prolate spheroids) and thin disks (oblate spheroids) can lead to significant turbulence modulations and drag reduction. However, the disk-induced drag reduction is less pronounced than that of rigid fibers with the same volume fraction. Typical features of drag-reduced flows by additives are observed in both flow statistics and turbulence coherent structures. Moreover, in contrast to one-way simulations, the two-way coupled results of spheroidal particles exhibit stronger preferential alignments and lower rotation rates. At the end we propose a drag reduction mechanism by inertialess spheroids and explain the different performance for drag reduction by fibers and disks. We find that the spheroidal particles weaken the quasistreamwise vortices through negative work and, therefore, the Reynolds shear stress is reduced. However, the mean shear stress generated by particles, which is shape-dependent, partly compensates for the reduction of Reynolds shear stress and thus affects the efficiency of drag reduction. The present study implies that tiny disk-like particles can be an alternative drag reduction agent in wall turbulence.