The Interaction of Solid or Liquid Particles and Turbulent Fluid Flow Fields—A Numerical Simulation

Using a simple model of turbulence a simulation is made of the interaction of an ensemble of discrete solid or liquid particles and a fluid continuum. Two notional one - dimensional systems are considered: one of which is unbounded and the other bounded by perfectly absorbing walls. The results for the unbounded system indicate that at sufficiently long times discrete particles may disperse more rapidly than the elements of the fluid continuum. The study on the bounded system, however, shows that in practice the ratio of particle relaxation time to particle mean residence time may be such that this rapid dispersion will not be achieved and, moreover, that characterization of the dispersion process by a constant diffusion coefficient leads to significant errors.