Turbulence Structure of Particle-Laden Flow in a Vertical Plane Channel Due to Vortex Shedding

Abstract

Turbulence modulation in particle-laden flow, especially the influence of vortex shedding, was investigated by means of the direct numerical simulation. To this end, we developed a finite-difference scheme to resolve the flow around each particle moving in turbulence. The method was applied to the flow around a sphere and the accuracy was confirmed up to the Reynolds number range with vortex shedding. The agreement between our 4th-order central finite-difference method and spectral method for turbulent channel flow without particles was also fine. Then, we simulated upward flow in a vertical channel including solid particles. The velocity and vorticity fluctuations as well as Reynolds shear stress were strongly affected by wakes from particles. The shed vortices were elongated in the mainstream direction by the velocity gradient and resulted in the hairpin vortices. They increased the energy production rate in couple with production due to particle-turbulence correlation.