Study and derivation of closures in the volume-filtered framework for particle-laden flows

TL;DR

This paper thoroughly analyzes and derives closures for the volume-filtered Navier-Stokes equations in particle-laden flows, providing new models and insights for subfilter stress, viscous effects, and particle momentum sources.

Contribution

It introduces analytical expressions for viscous closures, models the subfilter stress tensor, and proposes a modified advective term, advancing the understanding of volume-filtered particle-laden flow equations.

Findings

Subfilter stress tensor is significant and must be modeled.

Gaussian regularization poorly approximates particle momentum source at small filters.

Modified advective term improves stability in low volume fraction regions.

Abstract

The volume-filtering of the Navier-Stokes equations allows to consider the effect that particles have on the fluid without further assumptions, but closures arise of which the implications are not fully understood. In the present paper, we carefully study every closure in the volume-filtered fluid momentum equation and investigate their impact on the momentum and energy transfer dependent on the filtering characteristics. We provide an analytical expression for the viscous closure that arises because filter and spatial derivative in the viscous term do not commute. An analytical expression for the regularization of the particle momentum source of a single sphere in the Stokes regime is derived. Furthermore, we propose a model for the subfilter stress tensor, which originates from filtering the advective term. The model for the subfilter stress tensor is shown to agree well with the subfilter stress tensor for small filter widths relative to the size of the particle. We show that the subfilter stress tensor requires modeling and should not be neglected. For small filter widths, we find that the commonly applied Gaussian regularization of the particle momentum source is a poor approximation of the spatial distribution of the particle momentum source, but for larger filter widths the spatial distribution approaches a Gaussian. Furthermore, we propose a modified advective term in the volume-filtered momentum equation that consistently circumvents the common stability issues observed at locally small fluid volume fractions and identify inconsistencies in previous studies of the phase-averaged kinetic energy of the volume-filtered fluid velocity. Finally, we propose a generally applicable form of the volume-filtered momentum equation and its closures based on clear and well-founded assumptions and propose guidelines for point-particle simulations based on the new findings.