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On the interaction of Taylor length-scale size droplets and homogeneous shear turbulence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2023

Pablo Trefftz-Posada
Affiliation:
William E. Boeing Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Antonino Ferrante*
Affiliation:
William E. Boeing Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
*
Email address for correspondence: ferrante@aa.washington.edu

Abstract

The main objective of the present work is to explain the physical mechanisms occurring in droplet-laden homogeneous shear turbulence (HST) with a focus on the modulation of turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) caused by the droplets. To achieve such an objective, first, we performed direct numerical simulations (DNS) of HST laden with droplets of initial diameter approximately equal to twice the Taylor length scale of turbulence, droplet-to-fluid density and viscosity ratios equal to ten and a 5 % droplet volume fraction. We investigated the effects of shear number and Weber number on the modulation of TKE for $Sh \approx 2$ and $4$, and $0.02 \le {{We_{rms}}} \le 0.5$. Then, we derived the TKE equations for the two-fluid, carrier-fluid and droplet-fluid flow in HST and the relationship between the power of surface tension and the rate of change of total droplet surface area, providing the pathways of TKE for two-fluid incompressible HST. Our DNS results show that, for ${{We_{rms}}} = 0.02$, the rate of change of TKE is increased with respect to the single-phase cases, for ${{We_{rms}}} = 0.1$, the rate of change of TKE oscillates near the value for the single-phase cases and, for ${{We_{rms}}} = 0.5$, the rate of change of TKE is decreased with respect to the single-phase cases. Such modulation is explained from the analysis of production, dissipation and power of surface tension in the carrier-fluid and droplet-fluid flows. Finally, we explain the effects of droplets on the production and dissipation rate of TKE through the droplet ‘catching-up’ mechanism, and on the power of the surface tension through the droplet ‘shearing’ mechanism.

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), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press.
Figure 0

Figure 1. Spectrum of TKE, $E(\kappa )$, for single-phase HST at $tS = 2$ for ${\textit {Re}}_{\lambda 0} = 52$ and $Sh_0 \approx 2$, using the AB$_2$ (dotted line) and FastRK3 (solid line) time-integration schemes. The wavenumber, $\kappa$, is normalized by $\kappa _0 = 2{\rm \pi}/\mathcal {L}$.

Figure 1

Table 1. Flow parameters (dimensionless) at initial time ($t=0$), shear activation time ($t = 0.1$), droplet release time ($t_r = 0.5$ for case A$_2$, and $t_r = 0.3$ for case A$_4$) and at the final non-dimensional time ($t = 1.7$ for case A$_2$, and $t = 0.9$ for case A$_4$). Here, $t^*$ is defined in (3.4). Cases A$_2$ and A$_4$ are the single-phase HST flow with $Sh_0 \approx 2$ and $Sh_0 \approx 4$, respectively (see table 2).

Figure 2

Figure 2. Schematic showing the shear-periodic boundary conditions in the $z$ direction.

Figure 3

Table 2. Simulation properties (dimensionless) at droplet release.

Figure 4

Figure 3. Spectra of the TKE at ${t^*S} = 6$ in (a) $Sh_0 \approx 2$ cases and (b) $Sh_0 \approx 4$ cases. The wavenumber, $\kappa$, is normalized by $\kappa _0 = 2{\rm \pi}/ \mathcal {L}$.

Figure 5

Figure 4. Schematic showing the pathways for TKE exchange in DLHST, or, in general, for two-fluid incompressible HST, summarizing the results of (3.5)–(3.12).

Figure 6

Figure 5. Temporal evolution of the TKE, $k$, normalized by its initial value (a) $k_{0_{Sh\approx 2}}$ for $Sh\approx 2$ cases, and (b) $k_{0_{Sh\approx 4}}$ for $Sh\approx 4$ cases.

Figure 7

Figure 6. Temporal evolution of the production of TKE, ${{\mathcal {P}}}$, normalized by the initial value of the dissipation rate (a) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 2}}$ for $Sh\approx 2$ cases, and (b) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 4}}$ for $Sh\approx 4$ cases.

Figure 8

Figure 7. Temporal evolution of the dissipation rate of TKE, $\varepsilon$, normalized by the initial value of the dissipation rate (a) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 2}}$ for $Sh\approx 2$ cases, and (b) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 4}}$ for $Sh\approx 4$ cases.

Figure 9

Figure 8. Temporal evolution of the power of the surface tension due to the fluctuating velocity, ${{\varPsi '_{\sigma }}}$, normalized by the initial value of the dissipation rate (a) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 2}}$ for $Sh\approx 2$ cases, and (b) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 4}}$ for $Sh\approx 4$ cases.

Figure 10

Figure 9. Temporal evolution of the carrier-fluid contribution to the production of TKE, $(1-\phi _v){{\mathcal {P}}}_c$, normalized by the initial value of the dissipation rate (a) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 2}}$ for $Sh\approx 2$ cases, and (b) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 4}}$ for $Sh\approx 4$ cases.

Figure 11

Figure 10. Temporal evolution of the droplet-fluid contribution to the production of TKE, $\phi _v{{\mathcal {P}}}_d$, normalized by the initial value of the dissipation rate (a) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 2}}$ for $Sh\approx 2$ cases, and (b) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 4}}$ for $Sh\approx 4$ cases.

Figure 12

Figure 11. Temporal evolution of the total surface area of the droplets, $A$, normalized by its initial value, $A_0$.

Figure 13

Figure 12. Schematic showing the droplet ‘catching-up’ mechanism.

Figure 14

Figure 13. Two droplets demonstrating the droplet ‘catching-up’ mechanism in laminar shear flow. All droplet properties, the numerical viscosity and the mean shear are equal to those in case B$_4$. Droplet interfaces are black lines, velocity vectors deviation from the mean velocity field are black arrows, colour contours of ${{\mathcal {P}}}'=-S\rho uw$ and temporal evolution of ${{\mathcal {P}}}_d = \langle {{\mathcal {P}}}' \rangle _d$ in insert. Results are shown for (a) ${t^*S}=0.5$; (b) ${t^*S}=0.9$; (c) ${t^*S}=1.4$; (d) ${t^*S}=1.9$.

Figure 15

Figure 14. Two droplets demonstrating the droplet ‘catching-up’ mechanism in laminar shear flow. All droplet properties, the numerical viscosity and the mean shear are equal to those in case D$_4$. Droplet interfaces are black lines, velocity vectors deviation from the mean velocity field are black arrows, colour contours of ${{\mathcal {P}}}'=-S\rho uw$ and temporal evolution of ${{\mathcal {P}}}_d = \langle {{\mathcal {P}}}' \rangle _d$ in insert. (a) ${t^*S}=0.0$; (b) ${t^*S}=2.5$; (c) ${t^*S}=5.0$; (d) ${t^*S}=7.5$.

Figure 16

Figure 15. Two instantaneous colour contours in the $x$$z$ plane of ${{\mathcal {P}}}' = -S \rho uw$ and black lines for droplet interfaces highlighted within green circles where the droplet ‘catching-up’ mechanism is occurring for case B$_4$. (a) Case B$_4$, ${t^*S}=1.5$. (b) Case B$_4$, ${t^*S}=1.8$.

Figure 17

Figure 16. Temporal evolution of the total number of droplets.

Figure 18

Figure 17. Instantaneous contours in the $x$$z$ plane of $\varepsilon ' = Re^{-1} (\boldsymbol{\mathsf{T}}'_{ij}\boldsymbol{\mathsf{S}}'_{ij})$ at ${t^*S} = 3$ for cases A$_4$, B$_4$ and D$_4$. (a) Case $\textrm {A}_4$, ${t^*S}=3.0$. (b) Case $\textrm {B}_4$, ${t^*S}=3.0$. (c) Case $\textrm {D}_4$, ${t^*S}=3.0$.

Figure 19

Figure 18. Temporal evolution of the carrier-fluid contribution to the dissipation rate of TKE, $(1-\phi _v)\varepsilon _c$, normalized by the initial value of the dissipation rate (a) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 2}}$ for $Sh\approx 2$ cases, and (b) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 4}}$ for $Sh\approx 4$ cases.

Figure 20

Figure 19. Temporal evolution of the droplet-fluid contribution to the dissipation rate of TKE, $\phi _v\varepsilon _d$, normalized by the initial value of the dissipation rate (a) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 2}}$ for $Sh\approx 2$ cases, and (b) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 4}}$ for $Sh\approx 4$ cases.

Figure 21

Figure 20. Two droplets demonstrating the droplet ‘catching-up’ mechanism in laminar shear flow. All droplet properties, the numerical viscosity and the mean shear are equal to those in case B$_4$. Results are shown for (a) ${t^*S}=0.4$; (b) ${t^*S}=0.8$; (c) ${t^*S}=1.2$.

Figure 22

Figure 21. Temporal evolution of the power of the surface tension due to the mean velocity, ${{\bar {\varPsi }_\sigma }}$, normalized by the initial value of the dissipation rate (a) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 2}}$ for $Sh\approx 2$ cases, and (b) $\varepsilon _{0_{Sh\approx 4}}$ for $Sh\approx 4$ cases.

Figure 23

Figure 22. Schematic showing the droplet ‘shearing’ mechanism.

Figure 24

Table 3. Summary of ${{We_{rms}}}$ effects on $\mathrm {d} k/\mathrm {d} t$, ${{\mathcal {P}}}$, ${{\mathcal {P}}}_c$, ${{\mathcal {P}}}_d$, $\varepsilon$, $\varepsilon _c$, $\varepsilon _d$ and ${{\varPsi '_{\sigma }}}$ compared with the single-phase cases.

Figure 25

Figure 23. Control volume $\mathcal {V}(t)$ containing an interface $\varSigma (t)$ separating two immiscible volumes of fluid, $\mathcal {V}_c(t)$ and $\mathcal {V}_d(t)$.

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