Particle-Laden Channel Flows

Abstract

Studying the behavior of solid particles in a turbulent flow and their inverse effect on the characteristics of carrier gas presents one of the fundamental problems in the mechanics of heterogeneous media. The features characteristic of particle motion and the intensity of interphase processes are largely defined by the inertia of the dispersed phase and its concentration in the flow. The investigation of heterogeneous flows in channels (in particular, in pipes) is not a trivial problem. Studying the motion of particles in the flow field of the gas carrying them in the presence of gradients of averaged and fluctuation velocities and temperatures (in the case of nonisothermal flow) in the radial direction is not a simple problem per se. The gradient pattern of the profiles of averaged and fluctuation parameters of carrier gas leads to the nonuniformity of the force factors acting on a particle in the longitudinal and radial directions. This causes the formation of significantly nonuniform profiles of averaged and fluctuation velocities, temperatures, and concentrations of particles. The presence of shear profiles of characteristics of particles makes rather difficult the study of their inverse effect on the characteristics of the carrier medium. Therefore, as a result of their complexity, heterogeneous flows in pipes remain little-studied in spite of the numerous investigations of these flows.