PROPOSAL NO.: CTS-0639446 PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: S. BALACHANDAR INSTITUTION: UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
SGER: A novel computational approach to multiphase flow
The objective of this project is to study dispersed multiphase flow is at the interface between the phases, in terms of deformation, mass, momentum and energy transfer. Commonly used correlations completely ignore the stochastic nature of the interfacial coupling when viewed at the macroscale. A statistical representation of interfacial coupling that is capable of accurately accounting for the mean and other lower order moments will be pursued. The stochastic approach will be developed in the context of particulate turbulent channel flow. Direct numerical simulations (DNS) of finite-sized particles in motion in a fully developed turbulent channel flow will be performed. A sequence of large scale simulations will consider fully resolved DNS of a distribution of freely moving particles in a turbulent channel flow. The simulations will provide insight into mesoscale mechanisms such as local preferential accumulation, cluster formation and dispersion of particles of finite-size and finite Reynolds number. The simulations will also provide detailed statistical information on the back effect of particles on carrier phase turbulence. In this sense these simulations can potentially yield a detailed look at the three-dimensional time-dependent structure of multiphase wall turbulence and how it differs from corresponding single phase behavior. These simulations constitute a grand challenge problem in computational science and engineering and will advance the state of the art in computational simulations of particulate flows..
