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A model for drift velocity mediated scalar eddy diffusivity in homogeneous turbulent flows

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2024

Omkar B. Shende*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
Liam Storan
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
Ali Mani*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
*
Email address for correspondence: oshende@stanford.edu, alimani@stanford.edu
Email address for correspondence: oshende@stanford.edu, alimani@stanford.edu

Abstract

Low Stokes number particles at dilute concentrations in turbulent flows can reasonably be approximated as passive scalars. The added presence of a drift velocity due to buoyancy or gravity when considering the transport of such passive scalars can reduce the turbulent dispersion of the scalar via a diminution of the eddy diffusivity. In this work, we propose a model to describe this decay and use a recently developed technique to accurately and efficiently measure the eddy diffusivity using Eulerian fields and quantities. We then show a correspondence between this method and standard Lagrangian definitions of diffusivity and collect data across a range of drift velocities and Reynolds numbers. The proposed model agrees with data from these direct numerical simulations, offers some improvement to previous models in describing other computational and experimental data and satisfies theoretical constraints that are independent of Reynolds number.

Information

Type
JFM Papers
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press.
Figure 0

Figure 1. Instantaneous unnormalized velocity autocorrelations (a) and normalized energy spectra $E(kL_{11})/u_{rms}^2L_{11}$ (b) for the cases in a $2{\rm \pi} ^3$ box, with filtered forcing preventing energy growth in the largest modes. Note that $u_{rms} = 1$ for all cases.

Figure 1

Table 1. Summary of measured values relevant for the computation of $D^0_{11}$ and $D^0_{22}$.

Figure 2

Figure 2. Mean estimates of $D^0$ for the $Re_\lambda =14.4$ case using MFM and ELM with 95 % confidence intervals showing convergence to the final estimate from each method (– –).

Figure 3

Figure 3. Convergence of $D^0_{11}$ and $D^0_{22}$ with respect to box size for $Re_\lambda = 14.4$. Dashed lines represent (2.8) for $\alpha _{11} = 3.9$ (a,b) and $\alpha _{22} = 1.9$ (c,d). Certain MFM data are shown with representative 95 % confidence intervals, which consider only the statistical error and exclude finite box-size error; arrows indicate convergence with increasing box size. Panels (a,c) show standard axes, while panels (b,d) show log–log axes. The data and Appendix B suggest criteria for which the box size of $2{\rm \pi}$ is sufficient.

Figure 4

Figure 4. The MFM-measured $D^0_{11}$ and $D^0_{22}$ as a function of $u_d/u^*_{ii}$ for different flow Reynolds numbers for $L_{box} = 2{\rm \pi}$. The dashed lines represent the analytical curve given by (2.8) for $\alpha _{11} = 4$ (top) and $\alpha _{22} = 2$ (bottom). Certain MFM data are shown with representative 95 % confidence intervals, which consider only the statistical error and exclude finite box-size error. Panel (a) shows standard axes, while panel (b) shows log–log axes.

Figure 5

Figure 5. The present model compared with: (a) data from this work with parameter choices from table 1; from Wells & Stock (1983) and Squires & Eaton (1991) with $\beta = 1.1$; from He et al. (2005) with $\beta = 1.0$; and from Mazzitelli & Lohse (2004) with $\beta = 0.71$ with annotation for a particle motion case with and without lift. (b) Bounds at infinite $Re$ specified by Yudine (1959).