Near-wall turbulence modulation by small inertial particles

TL;DR

This study uses detailed simulations to explore how small inertial particles affect near-wall turbulence, revealing two distinct regimes of turbulence modulation depending on particle concentration, with implications for drag management.

Contribution

It identifies two regimes of turbulence modulation by inertial particles and analyzes their effects on flow dynamics and drag, providing new insights into particle-fluid interactions.

Findings

At moderate particle concentrations, turbulence is weakly affected and drag increases.

At higher concentrations, turbulence is significantly modulated, with complex interphase dynamics.

Increased particle inertia can lead to overall drag increase despite turbulence attenuation.

Abstract

We use interface-resolved simulations to study near-wall turbulence modulation by small inertial particles, much denser than the fluid, in dilute/semi-dilute conditions. We considered three bulk solid mass fractions, $\Psi=0.34\%$, $3.37\%$ and $33.7\%$, with only the latter two showing turbulence modulation. The increase of the drag is strong at $\Psi=3.37\%$, but mild in the densest case. Actually, two distinct regimes of turbulence modulation emerge: for smaller mass fractions, the turbulence statistics are weakly affected and the near-wall particle accumulation increases the drag so the flow appears as a single phase flow at slightly higher Reynolds number. Conversely, at higher mass fractions, the particles modulate the turbulent dynamics over the entire flow, and the interphase coupling becomes more complex. In this case, fluid Reynolds stresses are attenuated, but the inertial particle dynamics increases the drag via correlated velocity fluctuations leading to an overall drag increase. Hence, we conclude that, although particles at high mass fractions reduce the fluid turbulent drag, the solid phase inertial dynamics may still increase the overall drag. However, inspection of the streamwise momentum budget in the two-way coupling limit of vanishing volume fraction, but finite mass fraction, indicates that this trend could reverse at even higher particle load.