Radiation induces turbulence in particle-laden fluids.

Rémi Zamansky (1, 2) , Filippo Coletti (3) , Marc Massot (1, 4, 5, 6) , Ali Mani (1, 3)

1 CTR - Center for Turbulence Research [Stanford]
2 IMFT - Institut de mécanique des fluides de Toulouse
3 Department of Mechanical Engineering [Stanford]
4 EM2C - Laboratoire d'Énergétique Moléculaire et Macroscopique, Combustion
5 Ecole Centrale Paris
6 FR3487 - Fédération de Mathématiques de l'Ecole Centrale Paris

When a transparent fluid laden with solid particles is subject to radiative heating, non-uniformities in particle distribution result in local fluid temperature fluctuations. Under the influence of gravity, buoyancy induces vortical fluid motion which can lead to strong preferential concentration, enhancing the local heating and more non- uniformities in particle distribution. By employing direct numerical simulations this study shows that the described feedback loop can create and sustain turbulence. The velocity and length scale of the resulting turbulence is not known a priori, and is set by balance between viscous forces and buoyancy effects. When the particle response time is comparable to a viscous time scale, introduced in our analysis, the system exhibits intense fluctuations of turbulent kinetic energy and strong preferential concentration of particles

Mots clés: Particle-laden flows; turbulence; radiative transfer; particle clustering; cluster-induced turbulence; Turbulence; Particles; Thermal convection; Cluster

Domaines: Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Milieux fluides et réactifs

Rémi Zamansky, Filippo Coletti, Marc Massot, Ali Mani. Radiation induces turbulence in particle-laden fluids.. Physics of Fluids, 2014, 26 (7), pp.071701-071701. ⟨10.1063/1.4890296⟩. ⟨hal-01003004⟩