Resolved and subgrid-scale crossing trajectory effects in Eulerian large eddy simulations of polydisperse droplet transport

Abstract: We study the dispersion characteristics of slightly buoyant droplets in a turbulent jet using large eddy simulations (LES). The droplet number density fields are represented using an Eulerian approach with the dispersed phase modelled using the Fast-Eulerian method (Ferry & Balachandar 2001) that includes the droplet rise velocity. Radial concentration profiles and turbulent concentration fluxes for droplets of different sizes are analyzed to quantify the "trajectory crossing effect", when relative motions between particles and turbulent eddies tend to reduce turbulent diffusion. For finer LES grid resolutions, the model captures the differential, size based dispersion characteristics of the droplets with the transverse dispersion of the larger droplet sizes suppressed, since trajectory crossing effects are explicitly resolved in LES. We examine a similarity solution model for the size dependent radial concentration profiles based on a modified Schmidt number derived from the theory of turbulent diffusion of particles in the atmosphere proposed by Csanady 1963. The results are validated with the high resolution LES data and show good agreement. Then, the size dependent Schmidt number model is reformulated as a model for unresolved subgrid-scale trajectory crossing effects and used to calculate the subgrid concentration flux in a coarse LES of a turbulent jet, with slightly buoyant droplets injected at the centerline in the self-similar region of the jet. The results are compared to a simulation with higher grid resolution and a coarse simulation with a constant Schmidt number SGS model. We find that the subgrid model enhances the prediction accuracy of the concentration profiles and turbulent concentration flux for the coarse LES.