Modeling of the particle motion

The flow solver uses a one-way coupling between the flow field and the injected particles. Thus, the flow field is not affected by the particle transport problem.

The particle transport model, is defined by:

  • The equations of motion, arising from the statement of the conservation of particle momentum.
  • The initial conditions to be imposed on a newly-injected particle.

The equations of the particle motion are integrated in time to determine the particle centroid trajectory, .

The motion of a spherical particle is caused by the force acting on a single particle. Thus, the basic form of the system of governing equations for the particle trajectory is a set of ordinary differential equations for position and velocity in time:

where:

  • ρp is the particle density.
  • Vp is the volume of a particle.
  • is the particle velocity vector.
  • is the fluid/particle interaction force, decomposed into four portions as:

    • is the drag force, which is exerted upon a spherical particle traveling at a constant velocity in a flow with constant mean freestream velocity.

      See Drag force for more information.

    • is the buoyancy force due to gravity.

      See Buoyancy for more information.

    • is a set of non-drag forces (such as added mass force and pressure gradient), which accounts for the particle perturbations of flow field.

      See Non-drag forces for more information.

    • is a set of other forces, which models the impact upon the particle transport problem of both the unresolved turbulent fluctuations of the flow field, and the chaotic motions due to sub-continuum scale phenomena.

      See Brownian and turbulent diffusion for more information.

The governing equations are integrated to obtain the particle trajectory over the range of times t ∈ [tp0, ttf], where tp0 ≥ 0 is the injection time for the particle of interest, and the final particle time tpf is the lesser of the time, at which the particle exits the domain and the total simulation time for the particle transport problem, ttot.

Note:
The flow solver uses the following assumptions for particle tracking:
  • Spherical particles
  • No particle-particle iteration
  • No flow field alteration due to particle motion