On buoyancy in disperse two-phase flow and its impact on well-posedness of two-fluid models

TL;DR

This paper derives a unique, physically consistent closure for buoyancy in disperse two-phase flow, resolving longstanding controversies and ensuring well-posedness of two-fluid models.

Contribution

It introduces a new closure that fully accounts for stresses and pseudo-stresses without small-particle approximations, ensuring model stability.

Findings

Existing buoyancy closures are inconsistent with simulations and thought experiments.

The derived closure prevents Hadamard instabilities in two-fluid models.

Even simple models become linearly well-posed with the new closure.

Abstract

The Maxey-Riley-Gatignol equation for the flow around a sphere at low particle Reynolds number tells us that the fluid-particle interaction force decomposes into a contribution from the local flow disturbance caused by the particle's boundary -- consisting of the drag, virtual-mass, and history forces, and their Fax\'en corrections -- and another contribution from the stress of the background flow, termed generalized-buoyancy force. There is also a consensus that, for general disperse two-phase flow, the interfacial force density, coupling the average fluid phase and dispersed-phase momentum balances, decomposes in a likewise manner. However, there has been a long-standing controversy about the physical closure separating the generalized-buoyancy from the interfacial force density, especially whether or not pseudo-stresses, such as the Reynolds stress, should be attributed to the background flow. Furthermore, most existing propositions for this closure involve small-particle approximations. Here, we show that all existing buoyancy closures are inconsistent with particle-resolving numerical simulations and/or at least one of two simple thought experiments designed to determine the roles of pseudo-stresses and small-particle approximations. We then derive the unique consistent closure. It requires no approximation and implies that all stresses and pseudo-stresses in the average fluid phase momentum balance, except the Reynolds stress, fully contribute to the background flow responsible for buoyancy. Remarkably, it exhibits a low-pass filter property, attenuating buoyancy at short wavelengths, that prevents it from causing Hadamard instabilities, constituting a first-principle-based solution to the long-standing ill-posedness problem of two-fluid models. When employing the derived closure, even simplistic two-fluid models are linearly well-posed.