Model predictions of turbulent gas-particle shear flows

Sammanfattning: A turbulent two-phase flow model using kinetic theory of granularflows for the particle phase is developed and implmented in afinite element code. The model can be used for engineeringapplications. However, in this thesis it is used to investigateturbulent gas-particle flows through numerical simulations.  The feedback from the particles on the turbulence and the meanflow of the gas in a vertical channel flow is studied. In particular,the influence of the particle response time, particle volumefraction and particle diameter on the preferential concentration ofthe particles near the walls, caused by the turbophoretic effect isexplored. The study shows that when particle feedback is includedthe accumulation of particles near the walls decreases. It is also foundthat even at low volume fractions particles can have a significant impacton the turbulence and the mean flow of the gas. The effect of particles on a developing turbulent vertical upward pipeflow is also studied. The development length is found to substantiallyincrease compared to an unladen flow. To understand what governs thedevelopment length a simple estimation was derived, showing that itincreases with decreasing particle diameters in accordance with themodel simulations. A model for the fluctuating particle velocity in turbulentgas-particle flow is derived using a set of stochastic differentialequations taking into account particle-particle collisions. Themodel shows that the particle fluctuating velocity increases whenparticle-particle collisions become more important and that increasingparticle response times reduces the fluctuating velocity. The modelcan also be used for an expansion of the deterministic model for theparticle kinetic energy.