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The rupture of a liquid film due to coflowing turbulent shear flows in the gas phase is studied using a volume-of-fluid method. To simulate this multiphase problem, we use a simplified numerical setup where the liquid film is "sandwiched" between two fully developed boundary layers from a turbulent channel simulation. The film deforms and eventually ruptures within the shear zone created by the coflows. This efficient setup allows systematic variation of physical parameters to gauge their role in the aerodynamically driven deformation and rupture of a liquid film under fully developed sheared turbulence. This work presents a detailed study of the developing pressure field over the deforming film and related aerodynamic effects, as previously suggested by other authors, in particular the role of the inviscid lift and drag forces. A cumulative lift force is introduced to capture the effect of the alternating pressure minima and maxima forming over the film, which amplify and eventually rupture the film. A velocity scale derived from the lift-induced drag force reflects the state of the turbulent boundary layer over the film and collapses the temporal development of this cumulative lift force as well as the amplitude of film deformation with some success for the different film thicknesses and Reynolds numbers., QC 20210126

We analyze a suspension of deformable particles in a pressure-driven flow. The suspension is composed of neutrally buoyant initially spherical particles and a Newtonian carrier fluid, and the flow is solved by means of direct numerical simulations, using a fully Eulerian method based on a one-continuum formulation. The solid phase is modeled with an incompressible viscous hyperelastic constitutive relation, and the flow is characterized by three main dimensionless parameters, namely the solid volume fraction, the Reynolds and capillary numbers. The dependency of the effective viscosity on these three quantities is investigated to study the inertial effects on a suspension of deformable particles. It can be observed that the suspension has a shear-thinning behavior, and the reduction in effective viscosity for high shear rates is emphasized in denser configurations. The separate analysis of the Reynolds and capillary numbers reveal that the effective viscosity depends more on the capillary than on the Reynolds number. In addition, our simulations exhibit a consistent tendency for deformable particles to move toward the center of the channel, where the shear rate is low. This phenomenon is particularly marked for very dilute suspensions, where a whole region near the wall is empty of particles. Furthermore, when the volume fraction is increased this near-wall region is gradually occupied, because of higher mutual particle interactions. Deformability also plays an important role in the process. Indeed, at high capillary numbers, particles are more sensitive to shear rate variations and can modify their shape more easily to accommodate a greater number of particles in the central region of the channel. Finally, the total stress budgets show that the relative particle-induced stress contribution increases with the volume fraction and Reynolds number, and decreases with the particle deformability., QC 20210120

We present an efficient method for the direct numerical simulation of three-dimensional (3D) boiling flows. The liquid-vapor interface dynamics is captured using an interface-correction level set method, modified to account for the interface heat and mass transfer due to phase change. State-of-the-art computational techniques, such as the fast pressure-correction and ghost-fluid methods, are implemented to accurately solve the coupled thermo-fluid problem involving large density contrasts and jump conditions. The solver is thoroughly validated against four benchmark cases with increasing complexity, which show better mass conservation properties than traditional level set methods, thus allowing for coarser grid resolutions and lower computational costs. We further demonstrate our method by simulating two realistic 3D boiling flows in greater details. In the first case, a saturated film boiling of water vapor at near critical conditions over a horizontal hot flat plate is considered. The results are analyzed by comparing the transient evolution of the interface morphology, temperature distribution, space and time averaged Nusselt numbers obtained from numerical simulations with the semi-empirical correlation of Berenson and existing numerical literature. In the second case, we simulate the condensation and buoyancy-driven motion of a single spherical water vapor bubble at different subcooled liquid temperatures and saturation pressures. We find opposite trends of the condensation rate and the bubble rising velocity when the degree of subcooling is increased, and an increase of the condensation rate at lower saturation pressures, due to variation of the thermophysical properties., QC 20201214

The seminal Batchelor-Green's (BG) theory on the hydrodynamic interaction of two spherical particles of radii a suspended in a viscous shear flow assumes unbounded fluid. In the present paper we study how a rigid plane wall modifies this interaction. Using an integral equation for the surface traction we derive the expression for the particles' relative velocity as a sum of the BG's velocity and the term due to the presence of a wall at finite distance, z(0). Our calculation is not the perturbation theory of the BG solution, so the contribution due to the wall is not necessarily small. We indeed demonstrate that the presence of the wall is a singular perturbation, i.e., its effect cannot be neglected even at large distances. The distance at which the wall significantly alters the particles interaction scales as z(0)(3/5). The phase portrait of the particles' relative motion is different from the BG theory, where there are two singly connected regions of open and closed trajectories both of infinite volume. For finite z(0), besides the BG's domains of open and closed trajectories, there is a domain of closed (dancing) and open (swapping) trajectories that do not materialize in an unbounded shear flow. The width of this region grows as 1/z(0) at smaller separations from the wall. Along the swapping trajectories, which have been previously observed numerically, the incoming particle is turning back after the encounter with the reference particle, rather than passing it by, as the BG theory anticipates. The region of dancing trajectories has infinite volume and is separated from a BG-type domain of closed trajectories that becomes compact due to presence of the wall. We found a one-parameter family of equilibrium states that were previously overlooked, whereas the pair of spheres flows as a whole without changing its configuration. These states are marginally stable and their perturbation yields a two-parameter family of the dancing trajectories, whereas the test partic, QC 20200623

The gravity-driven motion of rigid particles with a temperature difference with respect to the surrounding viscous fluid is relevant in many natural and industrial processes, yet this has mainly been investigated for spherical particles. In this work we study the influence of the Grashof number (Gr) on the settling velocity and the drag coefficient CD of a single spheroidal particle of different aspect ratios (1/3, 1 and 3). The discrete forcing immersed boundary method (IBM) is employed to represent the fluid-solid interaction in both momentum and temperature equations, while the Boussinesq approximation is used for the coupling of momentum and temperature. The simulations show that the drag coefficient of any spheroidal particle below the onset of secondary motion can be predicted by the results of the settling spheres at the desired Grashof number as the main effect of the particle shape at low Galileo number (Ga) and sufficiently small Gr/Ga2 is found to be the change in the frontal area of the particle. Furthermore, we identify the regions of stable sedimentation (vertical path) in the Ga−Gr/Ga2 plane for the 3 particle shapes, investigated in this study. We show that the critical Ga beyond which the particle exhibits the zigzagging motion, is considerably smaller for oblate particles in comparison to prolate ones at low Gr/Ga2. However, both spheroidal shapes indicate a similar behavior as Gr/Ga2 increases beyond 0.5., QC 20200422

We perform three-dimensional numerical simulations to investigate the sedimentation of a single sphere in the absence and presence of a simple cross-shear flow in a yield stress fluid with weak inertia. In our simulations, the settling flow is considered to be the primary flow, whereas the linear cross-shear flow is a secondary flow with amplitude 10 % of the primary flow. To study the effects of elasticity and plasticity of the carrying fluid on the sphere drag as well as the flow dynamics, the fluid is modelled using the elastoviscoplastic constitutive laws proposed by Saramito (J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mech., vol. 158 (1-3), 2009, pp. 154-161). The extra non-Newtonian stress tensor is fully coupled with the flow equation and the solid particle is represented by an immersed boundary method. Our results show that the fore-aft asymmetry in the velocity is less pronounced and the negative wake disappears when a linear cross-shear flow is applied. We find that the drag on a sphere settling in a sheared yield stress fluid is reduced significantly compared to an otherwise quiescent fluid. More importantly, the sphere drag in the presence of a secondary cross-shear flow cannot be derived from the pure sedimentation drag law owing to the nonlinear coupling between the simple shear flow and the uniform flow. Finally, we show that the drag on the sphere settling in a sheared yield stress fluid is reduced at higher material elasticity mainly due to the form and viscous drag reduction., QC 20200623

Multiphase shear flows often show banded structures that affect the global behavior of complex fluids e.g. in microdevices. Here we investigate numerically the banding of emulsions, i.e. the formation of regions of high and low volume fractions, alternated in the vorticity direction and aligned with the flow (shear bands). These bands are associated with a decrease of the effective viscosity of the system. To understand the mechanism of experimentally observed banding, we have performed interface-resolved simulations of the two-fluid system. The experiments were performed starting with a random distribution of droplets, which under the applied shear, evolve in time resulting in a phase separation. To numerically reproduce this process, the banded structures are initialized in a narrow channel confined by two walls moving in opposite directions. We find that the initial banded distribution is stable when droplets are free to merge and unstable when coalescence is prevented. In this case, additionally, the effective viscosity of the system increases, resembling the rheological behavior of suspensions of deformable particles. Droplet coalescence, on the other hand, allows emulsions to reduce the total surface of the system and, hence, the energy dissipation associated with the deformation, which in turn reduces the effective viscosity., QC 20200420

The flapping states of a flexible fiber fully coupled to a three-dimensional turbulent flow are investigated via state-of-the-art numerical methods. Two distinct flapping regimes are predicted by the phenomenological theory recently proposed by Rosti et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 121:044501, 2018) the under-damped regime, where the elasticity strongly affects the fiber dynamics, and the over-damped regime, where the elastic effects are strongly inhibited. In both cases we can identify a critical value of the bending rigidity of the fiber by a resonance condition, which further provides a distinction between different flapping behaviors, especially in the under-damped case. We validate the theory by means of direct numerical simulations and find that, both for the over-damped regime and for the under-damped one, fibers are effectively slaved to the turbulent fluctuations and can therefore be used as a proxy to measure various two-point statistics of turbulence. Finally, we show that this holds true also in the case of a passive fiber, without any feedback force on the fluid., QC 20191105

The present experimental study addresses the flow of a yield stress fluid with some elasticity (Carbopol gel) in a square duct. The behaviour of two fluids with lower and higher yield stress is investigated in terms of the friction factor and flow velocities at multiple Reynolds numbers Re* is an element of (1, 200) and, hence, Bingham numbers Bi is an element of (0.01, 0.35). Taking advantage of the symmetry planes in a square duct, we reconstruct the entire 3-component velocity field from two-dimensional particle image velocimetry (PIV). A secondary flow consisting of eight vortices is observed to recirculate the fluid from the core towards the wall centre and from the corners back to the core. The extent and intensity of these vortices grows with increasing Re* or, alternately, as the plug size decreases. The second objective of this study is to explore the change in flow in the presence of particles. To this end, almost neutrally buoyant finite-size spherical particles with a duct height, 2H, to particle diameter, d(p), ratio of 12 are used at two volume fractions phi = 5 and 10 %. Particle tracking velocimetry is used to measure the velocity of these refractive-index-matched spheres in the clear Carbopol gel, and PIV to extract the fluid velocity. Additionally, simple shadowgraphy is also used to qualitatively visualise the development of the particle distribution along the streamwise direction. The particle distribution pattern changes from being concentrated at the four corners, at low flow rates, to being focussed along a diffused ring between the centre and the corners, at high flow rates. The presence of particles induces streamwise and wall-normal velocity fluctuations in the fluid phase; however, the primary Reynolds shear stress is still very small compared to turbulent flows. The size of the plug in the particle-laden cases appears to be smaller than the corresponding single-phase cases. Similar to Newtonian fluids, the friction factor increases due to, QC 20200217

We present a direct comparison between interface-resolved and one-way-coupled point-particle direct numerical simulations (DNS) of gravity-free turbulent channel flow laden with small inertial particles, with high particle-to-fluid density ratio and diameter of approximately three viscous units. The most dilute flow considered, solid volume fraction O(10(-5)), shows the particle feedback on the flow to be negligible, whereas differences with respect to the unladen case, notably a drag increase of approximately 10 %, are found for a volume fraction O(10(-4)). This is attributed to a dense layer of particles at the wall, caused by turbophoresis, flowing with large particle-to-fluid apparent slip velocity. The most dilute case is therefore taken as the benchmark for assessing the validity of a widely used point-particle model, where the particle dynamics results only from inertial and nonlinear drag forces. In the bulk of the channel, the first- and second-order moments of the particle velocity from the point-particle DNS agree well with those from the interface-resolved DNS. Close to the wall, however, most of the statistics show major qualitative differences. We show that this difference originates from the strong shear-induced lift force acting on the particles in the near-wall region. This mechanism is well captured by the lift force model due to Saffman (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 22 (2), 1965, pp. 385-400), while other widely used, more elaborate, approaches aiming at extending the lift model for a wider range of particle Reynolds numbers can actually underpredict the magnitude of the near-wall particle velocity fluctuations for the cases analysed here., QC 20191213

We simulate the flow of two immiscible and incompressible fluids separated by an interface in a homogeneous turbulent shear flow at a shear Reynolds number equal to 15 200. The viscosity and density of the two fluids are equal, and various surface tensions and initial droplet diameters are considered in the present study. We show that the two-phase flow reaches a statistically stationary turbulent state sustained by a non-zero mean turbulent production rate due to the presence of the mean shear. Compared to single-phase flow, we find that the resulting steady-state conditions exhibit reduced Taylor-microscale Reynolds numbers owing to the presence of the dispersed phase, which acts as a sink of turbulent kinetic energy for the carrier fluid. At steady state, the mean power of surface tension is zero and the turbulent production rate is in balance with the turbulent dissipation rate, with their values being larger than in the reference single-phase case. The interface modifies the energy spectrum by introducing energy at small scales, with the difference from the single-phase case reducing as the Weber number increases. This is caused by both the number of droplets in the domain and the total surface area increasing monotonically with the Weber number. This reflects also in the droplet size distribution, which changes with the Weber number, with the peak of the distribution moving to smaller sizes as the Weber number increases. We show that the Hinze estimate for the maximum droplet size, obtained considering break-up in homogeneous isotropic turbulence, provides an excellent estimate notwithstanding the action of significant coalescence and the presence of a mean shear., QC 20190902

Self-assembly of soft matter, such as droplets or colloids, has become a promising scheme to engineer novel materials, model living matter, and explore non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. In this article, we present detailed numerical simulations of few non-Brownian droplets in various flow conditions, specifically, focusing on their self-assembly within a short distance in a three-dimensional (3D) microfluidic channel, cf. [Shen et al., Adv. Sci., 2016, 3(6), 1600012]. Contrary to quasi two-dimensional (q2D) systems, where dipolar interaction is the key mechanism for droplet rearrangement, droplets in 3D confinement produce much less disturbance to the underlying flow, thus experiencing weaker dipolar interactions. Using confined simple shear and Poiseuille flows as reference flows, we show that the droplet dynamics is mostly affected by the shear-induced cross-stream migration, which favors chain structures if the droplets are under an attractive depletion force. For more compact clusters, such as three droplets in a triangular shape, our results suggest that an inhomogeneous cross-sectional inflow profile is further required. Overall, the accelerated self-assembly of a small-size droplet cluster results from the combined effects of strong depletion forces, confinement-mediated shear alignments, and fine-tuned inflow conditions. The deterministic nature of the flow-assisted self-assembly implies the possibility of large throughputs, though calibration of all different effects to directly produce large droplet crystals is generally difficult., QC 20190610

We experimentally investigate the influence of finite-size spherical particles in turbulent flows of a Newtonian and a drag reducing viscoelastic fluid at varying particle volume fractions and fixed Reynolds number. Experiments are performed in a square duct at a Reynolds number Re2H of nearly 1.1 × 104, Weissenberg number Wi for single phase flow is between 1 and 2 and results in a drag-reduction of 43% compared to a Newtonian flow (at the same Re2H). Particles are almost neutrally-buoyant hydrogel spheres having a density ratio of 1.0035 ± 0.0003 and a duct height 2H to particle diameter dp ratio of around 10. We measure flow statistics for four different volume fractions ϕ namely 5, 10, 15 and 20% by using refractive-index-matched Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). For both Newtonian Fluid (NF) and Visceolastic Fluid (VEF), the drag monotonically increases with ϕ. For NF, the magnitude of drag increase due to particle addition can be reasonably estimated using a concentration dependent effective viscosity for volume fractions below 10%. The drag increase is, however, underestimated at higher ϕ. For VEF, the absolute value of drag is lower than NF but, its rate of increase with ϕ is higher. Similar to particles in a NF, particles in VEF tend to migrate towards the center of the duct and form a layer of high concentration at the wall. Interestingly, relatively higher migration towards the center and lower migration towards the walls is observed for VEF. The primary Reynolds shear stress reduces with increasing ϕ throughout the duct height for both types of fluid., QC 20190215

We present a new Immersed Boundary Method (IBM) for the interface resolved simulation of spherical droplet evaporation in gas flow. The method is based on the direct numerical simulation of the coupled momentum, energy and species transport in the gas phase, while the exchange of these quantities with the liquid phase is handled through global mass, energy and momentum balances for each droplet. This approach, applicable in the limit of small spherical droplets, allows for accurate and efficient phase coupling without direct solution of the liquid phase fields, thus saving computational cost. We provide validation results, showing that all the relevant physical phenomena and their interactions are correctly captured, both for laminar and turbulent gas flow. Test cases include fixed rate and free evaporation of a static droplet, displacement of a droplet by Stefan flow, and evaporation of a hydrocarbon droplet in homogeneous isotropic turbulence. The latter case is validated against experimental data, showing the feasibility of the method towards the treatment of conditions representative of real life spray fuel applications., QC 20191015

We perform fully Eulerian numerical simulations of an initially spherical hyperelastic particle suspended in a Newtonian pressure-driven flow in a cylindrical straight pipe. We study the full particle migration and deformation for different Reynolds numbers and for various levels of particle elasticity, to disentangle the interplay of inertia and elasticity on the particle focusing. We observe that the particle deforms and undergoes a lateral displacement while traveling downstream through the pipe, finally focusing at the pipe centerline. We note that the migration dynamics and the final equilibrium position are almost independent of the Reynolds number, while they strongly depend on the particle elasticity; in particular, the migration is faster as the elasticity increases (i.e., the particle is more deformable), with the particle reaching the final equilibrium position at the centerline in shorter times. Our simulations show that the results are not affected by the particle initial conditions, position, and velocity. Finally, we explain the particle migration by computing the total force acting on the particle and its different components, viscous and elastic., QC 20191115

We study single-phase and particle-laden turbulent channel flows bounded by two incompressible hyper-elastic walls with different deformability at bulk Reynolds number $5600$ . The solid volume fraction of finite-size neutrally buoyant rigid spherical particles considered is $10\,\%$ . The elastic walls are assumed to be of a neo-Hookean material. A fully Eulerian formulation is employed to model the elastic walls together with a direct-forcing immersed boundary method for the coupling between the fluid and the particles. The data show a significant drag increase and the enhancement of the turbulence activity with growing wall elasticity for both the single-phase and particle-laden flows when compared with the single-phase flow over rigid walls. Drag reduction and turbulence attenuation is obtained, on the other hand, with highly elastic walls when comparing the particle-laden flow with the single-phase flow for the same wall properties; the opposite effect, drag increase, is observed upon adding particles to the flow over less elastic walls. This is explained by investigating the near-wall turbulence, where the strong asymmetry in the magnitude of the wall-normal velocity fluctuations (favouring positive $v<^>{\prime }$ ), is found to push the particles towards the channel centre. The particle layer close to the wall contributes to turbulence production by increasing the wall-normal velocity fluctuations, so that in the absence of this layer, smaller wall deformations and in turn turbulence attenuation is observed. For a moderate wall elasticity, we increase the particle volume fraction up to $20\,\%$ and find that particle migration away from the wall is the cause of turbulence attenuation with respect to the flow over rigid walls. However, for this higher volume fractions, the particle induced stress compensates for the decreasing Reynolds shear stress, resulting in a higher overall drag for the case with elastic walls. The effect of the wall elasticity on, QC 20190729

We present a numerical analysis of the rheology of a suspension of red blood cells (RBCs) in a wall-bounded shear flow. The flow is assumed as almost inertialess. The suspension of RBCs, modelled as biconcave capsules whose membrane follows the Skalak constitutive law, is simulated for a wide range of viscosity ratios between the cytoplasm and plasma, D 0 : 1-10, for volume fractions up to D 0 : 41 and for different capillary numbers (Ca). Our numerical results show that an RBC at low Ca tends to orient to the shear plane and exhibits so-called rolling motion, a stable mode with higher intrinsic viscosity than the so-called tumbling motion. As Ca increases, the mode shifts from the rolling to the swinging motion. Hydrodynamic interactions (higher volume fraction) also allow RBCs to exhibit tumbling or swinging motions resulting in a drop of the intrinsic viscosity for dilute and semi-dilute suspensions. Because of this mode change, conventional ways of modelling the relative viscosity as a polynomial function of cannot be simply applied in suspensions of RBCs at low volume fractions. The relative viscosity for high volume fractions, however, can be well described as a function of an effective volume fraction, defined by the volume of spheres of radius equal to the semi-middle axis of a deformed RBC. We find that the relative viscosity successfully collapses on a single nonlinear curve independently of except for the case with Ca > 0 : 4, where the fit works only in the case of low/ moderate volume fraction, and fails in the case of a fully dense suspension., QC 20190904

Particle image velocimetry and particle tracking velocimetry have been employed to investigate the dynamics of finite-size spherical particles, slightly heavier than the carrier fluid, in a horizontal turbulent square duct flow. Interface resolved direct numerical simulations (DNSs) have also been performed with the immersed boundary method at the same experimental conditions, bulk Reynolds number Re2H=5600, duct height to particle-size ratio 2H/dp=14.5, particle volume fraction Φ=1%, and particle to fluid density ratio ρp/ρf=1.0035. Good agreement has been observed between experiments and simulations in terms of the overall pressure drop, concentration distribution, and turbulent statistics of the two phases. Additional experimental results considering two particle sizes 2H/dp=14.5 and 9 and multiple Φ=1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, and 5% are reported at the same Re2H. The pressure drop monotonically increases with the volume fraction, almost linearly and nearly independently of the particle size for the above parameters. However, despite the similar pressure drop, the microscopic picture in terms of fluid velocity statistics differs significantly with the particle size. This one-to-one comparison between simulations and experiments extends the validity of interface resolved DNS in complex turbulent multiphase flows and highlights the ability of experiments to investigate such flows in considerable detail, even in regions where the local volume fraction is relatively high., QC 20190215

We study suspensions of rigid particles in a plane Couette flow with deformable elastic walls. We find that, in the limit of vanishing inertia, the elastic walls induce shear thinning of the suspension flow such that the effective viscosity decreases as the wall deformability increases. This shear-thinning behavior originates from the interactions between rigid particles, soft walls, and carrier fluids; an asymmetric wall deformation induces a net lift force acting on the particles which therefore migrate towards the bulk of the channel. Based on our observations, we provide a closure for the suspension viscosity which can be used to model the rheology of suspensions with arbitrary volume fraction in elastic channels., QC 20190805

We present a study of Lagrangian intermittency and its characteristic time scales. Using the concepts of flying and diving residence times above and below a given threshold in the magnitude of turbulence quantities, we infer the time spectra of the Lagrangian temporal fluctuations of dissipation, acceleration and enstrophy by means of a direct numerical simulation in homogeneous and isotropic turbulence. We then relate these time scales, first, to the presence of extreme events in turbulence and, second, to the local flow characteristics. Analyses confirm the existence in turbulent quantities of holes mirroring bursts, both of which are at the core of what constitutes Lagrangian intermittency. It is shown that holes are associated with quiescent laminar regions of the flow. Moreover, Lagrangian holes occur over few Kolmogorov time scales while Lagrangian bursts happen over longer periods scaling with the global decorrelation time scale, hence showing that loss of the history of the turbulence quantities along particle trajectories in turbulence is not continuous. Such a characteristic partially explains why current Lagrangian stochastic models fail at reproducing our results. More generally, the Lagrangian dataset of residence times shown here represents another manner for qualifying the accuracy of models. We also deliver a theoretical approximation of mean residence times, which highlights the importance of the correlation between turbulence quantities and their time derivatives in setting temporal statistics. Finally, whether in a hole or a burst, the straining structure along particle trajectories always evolves self-similarly (in a statistical sense) from shearless two-dimensional to shear bi-axial configurations. We speculate that this latter configuration represents the optimum manner to dissipate locally the available energy., QC 20190426

We present a modification of a recently developed volume of fluid method for multiphase problems (Ii et al. in J Comput Phys 231(5):2328-2358, 2012), so that it can be used in conjunction with a fractional-step method and fast Poisson solver, and validate it with standard benchmark problems. We then consider emulsions of two-fluid systems and study their rheology in a plane Couette flow in the limit of vanishing inertia. We examine the dependency of the effective viscosity on the volume fraction phi (from 10 to 30%) and the Capillary number Ca (from 0.1 to 0.4) for the case of density and viscosity ratio 1. We show that the effective viscosity decreases with the deformation and the applied shear (shear-thinning) while exhibiting a non-monotonic behavior with respect to the volume fraction. We report the appearance of a maximum in the effective viscosity curve and compare the results with those of suspensions of rigid and deformable particles and capsules. We show that the flow in the solvent is mostly a shear flow, while it is mostly rotational in the suspended phase; moreover, this behavior tends to reverse as the volume fraction increases. Finally, we evaluate the contributions to the total shear stress of the viscous stresses in the two fluids and of the interfacial force between them., QC 20190314

We present modal and non-modal linear stability analyses of Poiseuille flow through a plane channel with a porous substrate modeled using the Volume Averaged Navier-Stokes (VANS) equations. Modal stability analysis shows the destabilization of the flow with increasing porosity of the layer. The instability mode originates from the homogeneous fluid region of the channel for all the values of porosity considered but the governing mechanism changes. Perturbation kinetic energy analysis reveals the importance of viscous dissipation at low porosity values while dissipation in the porous substrate becomes significant at higher porosity. Scaling analysis highlights the invariance of the critical wavenumber with changing porosity. On the other hand, the critical Reynolds number remains invariant at low porosity and scales as Re-c similar to (H/delta)(1.4) at high porosity where delta is the typical thickness of the vorticity layer at the fluid-porous interface. This reveals the existence of a Tollmien-Schlichting-like viscous instability mechanism at low porosity values, and Rayleigh analysis shows the presence of an inviscid instability mechanism at high porosity. For the whole range of porosities considered, the non-modal analysis shows that the optimal mechanism responsible for transient energy amplification is the lift-up effect, giving rise to streaky structure as in single-phase plane Poiseuille flow. The present results strongly suggest that the transition to turbulence follows the same path as that of classical Poiseuille flow at low porosity values, while it is dictated by the modal instability for high porosity values. SAS. All rights reserved., QC 20180311

We have performed direct numerical simulation of the turbulent flow of a polymer solution in a square duct, with the FENE-P model used to simulate the presence of polymers. First, a simulation at a fixed moderate Reynolds number is performed and its results compared with those of a Newtonian fluid to understand the mechanism of drag reduction and how the secondary motion, typical of the turbulent flow in non-axisymmetric ducts, is affected by polymer additives. Our study shows that the Prandtl's secondary flow is modified by the polymers: the circulation of the streamwise main vortices increases and the location of the maximum vorticity moves towards the centre of the duct. In-plane fluctuations are reduced while the streamwise ones are enhanced in the centre of the duct and dumped in the corners due to a substantial modification of the quasi-streamwise vortices and the associated near-wall low- and high-speed streaks; these grow in size and depart from the walls, their streamwise coherence increasing. Finally, we investigated the effect of the parameters defining the viscoelastic behaviour of the flow and found that the Weissenberg number strongly influences the flow, with the cross-stream vortical structures growing in size and the in-plane velocity fluctuations reducing for increasing flow elasticity.We have performed direct numerical simulation of the turbulent flow of a polymer solution in a square duct, with the FENE-P model used to simulate the presence of polymers. First, a simulation at a fixed moderate Reynolds number is performed and its results compared with those of a Newtonian fluid to understand the mechanism of drag reduction and how the secondary motion, typical of the turbulent flow in non-axisymmetric ducts, is affected by polymer additives. Our study shows that the Prandtl's secondary flow is modified by the polymers: the circulation of the streamwise main vortices increases and the location of the maximum vorticity moves towards the centre of th, QC 20181213

The authors study the condensational growth of cloud droplets in homogeneous isotropic turbulence by means of a large-eddy simulation (LES) approach. The authors investigate the role of a mean updraft velocity and of the chemical composition of the cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) on droplet growth. The results show that a mean constant updraft velocity superimposed onto a turbulent field reduces the broadening of the droplet size spectra induced by the turbulent fluctuations alone. Extending the authors' previous results regarding stochastic condensation, the authors introduce a new theoretical estimation of the droplet size spectrum broadening that accounts for this updraft velocity effect. A similar reduction of the spectra broadening is observed when the droplets reach their critical size, which depends on the chemical composition of CCN. The analysis of the square of the droplet radius distribution, proportional to the droplet surface, shows that for large particles the distribution is purely Gaussian, while it becomes strongly non-Gaussian for smaller particles, with the left tail characterized by a peak around the haze activation radius. This kind of distribution can significantly affect the later stages of the droplet growth involving turbulent collisions, since the collision probability kernel depends on the droplet size, implying the need for new specific closure models to capture this effect., QC 20180326

We report experimental observations of turbulent flow with spherical particles in a square duct. Three particle sizes, namely 2H/d(p) = 40, 16 and 9 (2H being the duct full height and d(p) being the particle diameter), are investigated. The particles are nearly neutrally buoyant with a density ratio of 1.0035 and 1.01 with respect to the suspending fluid. Refractive index matched-particle image velocimetry (RIM-PIV) is used for fluid velocity measurement even at the highest particle volume fraction (20 %) and particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) for the particle velocity statistics for the flows seeded with particles of the two largest sizes, whereas only pressure measurements are reported for the smallest particles. Settling effects are seen at the lowest bulk Reynolds number R-e2H approximate to 10 000, whereas, at the highest R-e2H approximate to 27 000, particles are in almost full suspension. The friction factor of the suspensions is found to be significantly larger than that of single-phase duct flow at the lower R-e2H investigated; however, the difference decreases when increasing the flow rate and the total drag approaches the values of the single-phase flow at the higher Reynolds number considered, R-e2H = 27 000. The pressure drop is found to decrease with the particle diameter for volume fractions lower than (sic) = 10% for nearly all R-e2H investigated. However, at the highest volume fraction (sic) = 20 %, we report a peculiar non-monotonic behaviour: the pressure drop first decreases and then increases with increasing particle size. The decrease of the turbulent drag with particle size at the lowest volume fractions is related to an attenuation of the turbulence. The drag increase for the two largest particle sizes at (sic) = 20 %, however, occurs despite this large reduction of the turbulent stresses, and it is therefore due to significant particle-induced stresses. At the lowest Reynolds number, the particles reside mostly in the bottom half of the duc, QC 20181121

The effect of the variations of the permeability tensor on the close-to-the-wall behaviour of a turbulent channel flow bounded by porous walls is explored using a set of direct numerical simulations. It is found that the total drag can be either reduced or increased by more than 20% by adjusting the permeability directional properties. Drag reduction is achieved for the case of materials with permeability in the vertical direction lower than the one in the wall-parallel planes. This configuration limits the wall-normal velocity at the interface while promoting an increase of the tangential slip velocity leading to an almost 'one-component' turbulence where the low- and high-speed streak coherence is strongly enhanced. On the other hand, strong drag increase is found when high wall-normal and low wall-parallel permeabilities are prescribed. In this condition, the enhancement of the wall-normal fluctuations due to the reduced wall-blocking effect triggers the onset of structures which are strongly correlated in the spanwise direction, a phenomenon observed by other authors in flows over isotropic porous layers or over ribletted walls with large protrusion heights. The use of anisotropic porous walls for drag reduction is particularly attractive since equal gains can be achieved at different Reynolds numbers by rescaling the magnitude of the permeability only., QC 20180403

We study the dynamics of a flexible fiber freely moving in a three-dimensional fully developed turbulent field and present a phenomenological theory to describe the interaction between the fiber elasticity and the turbulent flow. This theory leads to the identification of two distinct regimes of flapping, which we validate against direct numerical simulations fully resolving the fiber dynamics. The main result of our analysis is the identification of a flapping regime where the fiber, despite its elasticity, is slaved to the turbulent fluctuations. In this regime the fiber can be used to measure two-point statistical observables of turbulence, including scaling exponents of velocity structure functions, the sign of the energy cascade and the energy flux of turbulence, as well as the characteristic times of the eddies within the inertial range of scales. Our results are expected to have a deep impact on the experimental turbulence research as a new way, accurate and efficient, to measure two-point, and more generally multipoint, statistics of turbulence., QC 20180809

We study turbulent channel flows of monodisperse and polydisperse suspensions of finite-size spheres by means of Direct Numerical Simulations using an immersed boundary method to account for the dispersed phase. Suspensions with 3 different Gaussian distributions of particle radii are considered (i.e. 3 different standard deviations). The distributions are centered on the reference particle radius of the monodisperse suspension. In the most extreme case, the radius of the largest particles is 4 times that of the smaller particles. We consider two different solid volume fractions, 2% and 10%. We find that for all polydisperse cases, both fluid and particles statistics are not substantially altered with respect to those of the monodisperse case. Mean streamwise fluid and particle velocity profiles are almost perfectly overlapping. Slightly larger differences are found for particle velocity fluctuations. These increase close to the wall and decrease towards the centerline as the standard deviation of the distribution is increased. Hence, the behavior of the suspension is mostly governed by excluded volume effects regardless of particle size distribution (at least for the radii here studied). Due to turbulent mixing, particles are uniformly distributed across the channel. However, smaller particles can penetrate more into the viscous and buffer layer and velocity fluctuations are therein altered. Non trivial results are presented for particle-pair statistics., QC 20171116

Aiming for the simulation of colloidal droplets in microfluidic devices, we present here a numerical method for two-fluid systems subject to surface tension and depletion forces among the suspended droplets. The algorithm is based on an efficient solver for the incompressible two-phase Navier–Stokes equations, and uses a mass-conserving level set method to capture the fluid interface. The four novel ingredients proposed here are, firstly, an interface-correction level set (ICLS) method; global mass conservation is achieved by performing an additional advection near the interface, with a correction velocity obtained by locally solving an algebraic equation, which is easy to implement in both 2D and 3D. Secondly, we report a second-order accurate geometric estimation of the curvature at the interface and, thirdly, the combination of the ghost fluid method with the fast pressure-correction approach enabling an accurate and fast computation even for large density contrasts. Finally, we derive a hydrodynamic model for the interaction forces induced by depletion of surfactant micelles and combine it with a multiple level set approach to study short-range interactions among droplets in the presence of attracting forces., QC 20171201

Motivated by the emerging applications of liquid-infused surfaces (LIS), we study the drag reduction and robustness of transverse flows over two-dimensional microcavities partially filled with an oily lubricant. Using separate simulations at different scales, characteristic contact line velocities at the fluid-solid intersection are first extracted from nanoscale phase field simulations and then applied to micronscale two-phase flows, thus introducing a multiscale numerical framework to model the interface displacement and deformation within the cavities. As we explore the various effects of the lubncant-toouter-fluid viscosity ratio A2/A0 th(mu)over tilde( )c(mu)over tilde(1), thary number Ca, the static contact angle A> and t theta(s), filling fraction of the cavity <5, we f delta d that the effective slip is most sensitive to the parameter S. The effects of A2/A1 an(mu)over tilde( )A(mu)over tilde(a )re ge theta(s)erally intertwined but weakened if <5 < 1. delta M 1er, for an initial filling fraction S = 0.94 delta our results show that the effective slip is nearly independent of the capillary number when it is small. Further increasing Ca to about O.OIA1/A20.01(mu)over tilde(1)/(mu)over tilde(2)ntify a possible failure mode, associated with lubricants draining from the LIS, for A2/A1 A (mu)over tilde(2)1(mu)over tilde(1)V less than or similar to y viscous lubricants (e.g., A2/A1 > (mu)over tilde()),(mu)over tilde(h)owever, are immune to such failure due to their generally larger contact line velocity., QC 20180613

QC 20181213

QC 20181214

We study the settling of rigid oblates in a quiescent fluid using interface-resolved direct numerical simulations. In particular, an immersed boundary method is used to account for the dispersed solid phase together with lubrication correction and collision models to account for short-range particle-particle interactions. We consider semi-dilute suspensions of oblate particles with aspect ratio AR = 1/3 and solid volume fractions (Phi = 0.5-10%. The solid-to-fluid density ratio R = 1.02 and the Galileo number (i.e. the ratio between buoyancy and viscous forces) based on the diameter of a sphere with equivalent volume Ga = 60. With this choice of parameters, an isolated oblate falls vertically with a steady wake with its broad side perpendicular to the gravity direction. At this Ga, the mean settling speed of spheres is a decreasing function of the volume Phi and is always smaller than the terminal velocity of the isolated particle, V-t. On the contrary, in dilute suspensions of oblate particles (with Phi <= 1 %), the mean settling speed is approximately 33 % larger than V-t. At higher concentrations, the mean settling speed decreases becoming smaller than the terminal velocity V-t between (Phi = 5 % and 10%. The increase of the mean settling speed is due to the formation of particle clusters that for Phi = 0.5-1 % appear as columnar-like structures. From the pair distribution function we observe that it is most probable to find particle pairs almost vertically aligned. However, the pair distribution function is non-negligible all around the reference particle indicating that there is a substantial amount of clustering at radial distances between 2 and 6c (with c the polar radius of the oblate). Above Phi = 5 %, the hindrance becomes the dominant effect, and the mean settling speed decreases below V-t. As the particle concentration increases, the mean particle orientation changes and the mean pitch angle (the angle between the particle axis of symmetry and gravity, QC 20180731

QC 20181213

We study the settling of finite-size rigid spheres in quiescent fluid and in sustained homogeneous isotropic turbulence (HIT) by direct numerical simulations using an immersed boundary method to account for the dispersed solid phase. We consider semi-dilute and dense suspensions of rigid spheres with solid volume fractions ϕ= 0.5 - 10 % , solid-to-fluid density ratio R= 1.02 , and Galileo number (i.e., the ratio between buoyancy and viscous forces) Ga= 145. In HIT, the nominal Reynolds number based on the Taylor microscale is Re λ ≃ 90 , and the ratio between the particle diameter and the nominal Kolmogorov scale is (2 a) / η≃ 12 (being a the particle radius). We find that in HIT the mean settling speed is less than that in quiescent fluid for all ϕ. For ϕ= 0.5 % , the mean settling speed in HIT is 8 % less than in quiescent fluid. However, by increasing the volume fraction the difference in the mean settling speed between quiescent fluid and HIT cases reduces, being only 1.7 % for ϕ= 10 %. Indeed, while at low ϕ the settling speed is strongly altered by the interaction with turbulence, at large ϕ this is mainly determined by the (strong) hindering effect. This is similar in quiescent fluid and in HIT, leading to similar mean settling speeds. On the contrary, particle angular velocities are always found to increase with ϕ. These are enhanced by the interaction with turbulence, especially at low ϕ. In HIT, the correlations of particle lateral velocity fluctuations oscillate around zero before decorrelating completely. The time period of the oscillation seems proportional to the ratio between the integral lengthscale of turbulence and the particle characteristic terminal velocity. Regarding the mean square particle displacement, we find that it is strongly enhanced by turbulence in the direction perpendicular to gravity, even at the largest ϕ. Finally, we investigate the collision statistics for all cases and find the interesting result that the collision frequency is, QC 20190304

We investigate the elastoviscoplastic flow through porous media by numerical simulations. We solve the Navier–Stokes equations combined with the elastoviscoplastic model proposed by Saramito for the stress tensor evolution [1]. In this model, the material behaves as a viscoelastic solid when unyielded, and as a viscoelastic Oldroyd-B fluid for stresses higher than the yield stress. The porous media is made of a symmetric array of cylinders, and we solve the flow in one periodic cell. We find that the solution is time-dependent even at low Reynolds numbers as we observe oscillations in time of the unyielded region especially at high Bingham numbers. The volume of the unyielded region slightly decreases with the Reynolds number and strongly increases with the Bingham number; up to 70% of the total volume is unyielded for the highest Bingham numbers considered here. The flow is mainly shear dominated in the yielded region, while shear and elongational flow are equally distributed in the unyielded region. We compute the relation between the pressure drop and the flow rate in the porous medium and present an empirical closure as function of the Bingham and Reynolds numbers. The apparent permeability, normalized with the case of Newtonian fluids, is shown to be greater than 1 at low Bingham numbers, corresponding to lower pressure drops due to the flow elasticity, and smaller than 1 for high Bingham numbers, indicating larger dissipation in the flow owing to the presence of the yielded regions. Finally we investigate the effect of the Weissenberg number on the distribution of the unyielded regions and on the pressure gradient., QC 20180518

We study heat transfer in plane Couette flow laden with rigid spherical particles by means of direct numerical simulations. In the simulations we use a direct-forcing immersed boundary method to account for the dispersed phase together with a volume-of-fluid approach to solve the temperature field inside and outside the particles. We focus on the variation of the heat transfer with the particle Reynolds number, total volume fraction (number of particles) and the ratio between the particle and fluid thermal diffusivity, quantified in terms of an effective suspension diffusivity. We show that, when inertia at the particle scale is negligible, the heat transfer increases with respect to the unladen case following an empirical correlation recently proposed in the literature. In addition, an average composite diffusivity can be used to approximate the effective diffusivity of the suspension in the inertialess regime when varying the molecular diffusion in the two phases. At finite particle inertia, however, the heat transfer increase is significantly larger, smoothly saturating at higher volume fractions. By phase-ensemble-averaging we identify the different mechanisms contributing to the total heat transfer and show that the increase of the effective conductivity observed at finite inertia is due to the increase of the transport associated with fluid and particle velocity. We also show that the contribution of the heat conduction in the solid phase to the total wall-normal heat flux reduces when increasing the particle Reynolds number, so that particles of low thermal diffusivity weakly alter the total heat flux in the suspension at finite particle Reynolds numbers. On the other hand, a higher particle thermal diffusivity significantly increases the total heat transfer., QC 20171207

Finite-size particles modulate wall-bounded turbulence, leading, for the case of spherical particles, to increased drag also owing to the formation of a particle wall layer. Here, we study the effect of particle shape on the turbulence in suspensions of spheroidal particles at volume fraction phi = 10 % and show how the near-wall particle dynamics deeply changes with the particle aspect ratio and how this affects the global suspension behaviour. Direct numerical simulations are performed using a direct-forcing immersed boundary method to account for the dispersed phase, combined with a soft-sphere collision model and lubrication corrections for short-range particle-particle and particle-wall interactions. The turbulence reduces with the aspect ratio of oblate particles, leading to drag reduction with respect to the single-phase flow for particles with aspect ratio AR <= 1/3, when the significant reduction in Reynolds shear stress is more than the compensation by the additional stresses, induced by the solid phase. Oblate particles are found to avoid the region close to the wall, travelling parallel to it with small angular velocities, while preferentially sampling high-speed fluid in the wall region. Prolate particles also tend to orient parallel to the wall and avoid its vicinity. Their reluctance to rotate around the spanwise axis reduces the wall-normal velocity fluctuation of the flow and therefore the turbulence Reynolds stress, similar to oblates; however, they undergo rotations in wall-parallel planes which increase the additional solid stresses due to their relatively larger angular velocities compared to the oblates. These larger additional stresses compensate for the reduction in turbulence activity and lead to a wall drag similar to that of single-phase flows. Spheres on the other hand, form a layer close to the wall with large angular velocities in the spanwise direction, which increases the turbulence activity in addition to exerting the largest soli, QC 20181211

We study the turbulent square duct flow of dense suspensions of neutrally buoyant spherical particles. Direct numerical simulations (DNS) are performed in the range of volume fractions phi = 0-0.2, using the immersed boundary method (IBM) to account for the dispersed phase. Based on the hydraulic diameter a Reynolds number of 5600 is considered. We observe that for phi = 0.05 and 0.1, particles preferentially accumulate on the corner bisectors, close to the corners, as also observed for laminar square duct flows of the same duct-to-particle size ratio. At the highest volume fraction, particles preferentially accumulate in the core region. For plane channel flows, in the absence of lateral confinement, particles are found instead to be uniformly distributed across the channel. The intensity of the cross-stream secondary flows increases (with respect to the unladen case) with the volume fraction up to phi = 0.1, as a consequence of the high concentration of particles along the corner bisector. For phi = 0.2 the turbulence activity is reduced and the intensity of the secondary flows reduces to below that of the unladen case. The friction Reynolds number increases with phi in dilute conditions, as observed for channel flows. However, for phi = 0.2 the mean friction Reynolds number is similar to that for phi = 0.1. By performing the turbulent kinetic energy budget, we see that the turbulence production is enhanced up to phi = 0.1, while for phi = 0.2 the production decreases below the values for phi = 0.05. On the other hand, the dissipation and the transport monotonically increase with phi The interphase interaction term also contributes positively to the turbulent kinetic energy budget and increases monotonically with phi, in a similar way as the mean transport. Finally, we show that particles move on average faster than the fluid. However, there are regions close to the walls and at the corners where they lag behind it. In particular, for phi = 0.05, 0.1, the slip vel, Not duplicate with DiVA 1157360QC 20180803

We present numerical simulations of laminar and turbulent channel flow of an elastoviscoplastic fluid. The non-Newtonian flow is simulated by solving the full incompressible Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the evolution equation for the elastoviscoplastic stress tensor. The laminar simulations are carried out for a wide range of Reynolds numbers, Bingham numbers and ratios of the fluid and total viscosity, while the turbulent flow simulations are performed at a fixed bulk Reynolds number equal to 2800 and weak elasticity. We show that in the laminar flow regime the friction factor increases monotonically with the Bingham number (yield stress) and decreases with the viscosity ratio, while in the turbulent regime the friction factor is almost independent of the viscosity ratio and decreases with the Bingham number, until the flow eventually returns to a fully laminar condition for large enough yield stresses. Three main regimes are found in the turbulent case, depending on the Bingham number: for low values, the friction Reynolds number and the turbulent flow statistics only slightly differ from those of a Newtonian fluid; for intermediate values of the Bingham number, the fluctuations increase and the inertial equilibrium range is lost. Finally, for higher values the flow completely laminarizes. These different behaviours are associated with a progressive increases of the volume where the fluid is not yielded, growing from the centreline towards the walls as the Bingham number increases. The unyielded region interacts with the near-wall structures, forming preferentially above the high-speed streaks. In particular, the near-wall streaks and the associated quasi-streamwise vortices are strongly enhanced in an highly elastoviscoplastic fluid and the flow becomes more correlated in the streamwise direction., QC 20180914

To study the dynamics of particles in turbulence when their sizes are comparable to the smallest eddies in the flow, the Kolmogorov length scale, efficient and accurate numerical models for the particle-fluid interaction are still missing. Therefore, we here extend the treatment of the particle feedback on the fluid based on the volume-averaged fluid equations (VA simulation) in the previous study of the present authors, by estimating the fluid force correlated with the disturbed flow. We validate the model against interface-resolved simulations using the immersed-boundary method. Simulations of single particles show that the history effect is well captured by the present estimation method based on the disturbed flow. Similarly, the simulation of the flow around a rotating particle demonstrates that the lift force is also well captured by the proposed method. We also consider the interaction between non-negligible size particles and an array of Taylor–Green vortices. For density ratios ρd /ρc ≥ 10, the results show that the particle motion captured by the VA approach is closer to that of the fully-resolved simulations than that obtained with a traditional two-way coupling simulation. The flow disturbance is also well represented by the VA simulation. In particular, it is found that history effects enhance the curvature of the trajectory in vortices and this enhancement increases with the particle size. Furthermore, the flow field generated by a neighboring particle at distances of around ten particle diameters significantly influences particle trajectories. The computational cost of the VA simulation proposed here is considerably lower than that of the interface-resolved simulation., QC 20180517

We construct a boundary integral representation for the low-Reynolds-number flow in a channel in the presence of freely suspended particles (or droplets) of arbitrary size and shape. We demonstrate that lubrication theory holds away from the particles at horizontal distances exceeding the channel height and derive a multipole expansion of the flow which is dipolar to the leading approximation. We show that the dipole moment of an arbitrary particle is a weighted integral of the stress and the flow at the particle surface, which can be determined numerically. We introduce the equation of motion that describes hydrodynamic interactions between arbitrary, possibly different, distant particles, with interactions determined by the product of the mobility matrix and the dipole moment. Further, the problem of three identical interacting spheres initially aligned in the streamwise direction is considered and the experimentally observed "pair exchange" phenomenon is derived analytically and confirmed numerically. For nonaligned particles, we demonstrate the formation of a configuration with one particle separating from a stable pair. Our results suggest that in a dilute initially homogenous particulate suspension flowing in a channel the particles will eventually separate into singlets and pairs., QC 20180117

SUMMARY We study numerically the entire migration dynamics of spherical and oblate particles in straight rectangular and square cross sectional ducts. The reported results can help in design of straight duct channel based microfluidic systems. KEYWORDS: Inertial microfluidics, Lateral migration, Oblate particles, Straight particles. INTRODUCTION We simulate spherical and oblate rigid particles in straight ducts of different aspect ratios using an Immersed Boundary Method. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time not only the equilibrium position of particles is described, but also the entire migration dynamics of the particle from the initial to final position, including particle trajectory, velocity, rotation and orientation, are investigated. EXPERIMENTAL The fluid is considered incompressible and its motion is governed by the Navier Stokes and Continuity equations. The numerical approach employed is an Immersed Boundary Method (IBM) with two sets of grid points: an equispaced Eulerian mesh for the fluid flow, and Lagrangian grid points uniformly distributed on the surface of the particle. The flow is set up in square and rectangular cross section ducts with no slip and no penetration boundary conditions (Fig.1). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION We examine the lateral motion of spherical and oblate particles using the IBM method mentioned above. While simulating three different spheres in a square duct of duct width to sphere diameter ratio H/Ds= [3.5, 5, 10], we find that the particles focus at closest face-cantered equilibrium position from their point of introduction(Fig.2a). We also show the downstream length needed for a sphere to focus, focusing length, as a function of the distance from the vertical duct symmetry line and as a function of Reynolds number(Fig.2b and c respectively). Spherical particles in rectangular duct tend to move laterally toward the longer length wall and then slowly moves towards the equilibrium position at the face-centre, QC 20190819

We study the inertial migration of finite-size neutrally buoyant spherical particles in dilute and semidilute suspensions in laminar square duct flow. We perform several direct numerical simulations using an immersed boundary method to investigate the effects of the bulk Reynolds number Re-b, particle Reynolds number Re-p, and duct to particle size ratio h/a at different solid volume fractions phi, from very dilute conditions to 20%. We show that the bulk Reynolds number Re-b is the key parameter in inertial migration of particles in dilute suspensions. At low solid volume fraction (phi = 0.4%), low bulk Reynolds number (Re-b = 144), and h/a = 9 particles accumulate at the center of the duct walls. As Re-b is increased, the focusing position moves progressively toward the corners of the duct. At higher volume fractions, phi = 5%, 10%, and 20%, and in wider ducts (h/a = 18) with Re-b = 550, particles are found to migrate away from the duct core toward the walls. In particular, for phi = 5% and 10%, particles accumulate preferentially at the corners. At the highest volume fraction considered, phi = 20%, particles sample all the volume of the duct, with a lower concentration at the duct core. For all cases, we find that particles reside longer times at the corners than at the wall centers. In a duct with lower duct to particle size ratio h/a = 9 (i.e., with larger particles), phi = 5%, and high bulk Reynolds number Re-b = 550, we find a particle concentration pattern similar to that in the ducts with h/a = 9 regardless of the solid volume fraction phi. Instead, for lower Bulk Reynolds number Re-b = 144, h/a = 9, and phi = 5%, a different particle distribution is observed in comparison to a dilute suspension phi = 0.4%. Hence, the volume fraction plays a key role in defining the final distribution of particles in semidilute suspensions at low bulk Reynolds number. The presence of particles induces secondary cross-stream motions in the duct cross section, for all phi. Th, QC 20171116

Previous studies have shown that intermediate magnitude of surface tension has a counterintuitive destabilizing effect on two-phase planar jets. In the present study, the transition process in confined two-dimensional jets of two fluids with varying viscosity ratio is investigated using direct numerical simulations (DNSs). The outer fluid coflow velocity is 17% of that of the central jet. Neutral curves for the appearance of persistent oscillations are found by recording the norm of the velocity residuals in DNS for over 1000 nondimensional time units or until the signal has reached a constant level in a logarithmic scale, either a converged steady state or a "statistically steady" oscillatory state. Oscillatory final states are found for all viscosity ratios ranging from 10-1 to 10. For uniform viscosity (m = 1), the first bifurcation is through a surface-tension-driven global instability. On the other hand, for low viscosity of the outer fluid, there is a mode competition between a steady asymmetric Coanda-type attachment mode and the surface-tension-induced mode. At moderate surface tension, the first bifurcation is through the Coanda-type attachment, which eventually triggers time-dependent convective bursts. At high surface tension, the first bifurcation is through the surface-tension-dominated mode. For high viscosity of the outer fluid, persistent oscillations appear due to a strong convective instability, although it is shown that absolute instability may be possible at even higher viscosity ratios. Finally, we show that the jet is still convectively and absolutely unstable far from the inlet when the shear profile is nearly constant. Comparing this situation to a parallel Couette flow (without inflection points), we show that in both flows, a hidden interfacial mode brought out by surface tension becomes temporally and absolutely unstable in an intermediate Weber and Reynolds regime. By an energy analysis of the Couette flow case, we show that surface tensi, QC 20170509

Phytoplankton are the foundation of aquatic food webs. Through photosynthesis, phytoplankton draw down $CO_2$ at magnitudes equivalent to forests and other terrestrial plants and convert it to organic material that is then consumed by other organisms of phytoplankton in higher trophic levels. Mechanisms that affect local concentrations and velocities are of primary significance to many encounter-based processes in the plankton including prey-predator interactions, fertilization and aggregate formation. We report results from simulations of sinking phytoplankton, considered as elongated spheroids, in homogenous isotropic turbulence to answer the question of whether trajectories and velocities of sinking phytoplankton are altered by turbulence. We show in particular that settling spheroids with physical characteristics similar to those of diatoms weakly cluster and preferentially sample regions of down-welling flow, corresponding to an increase of the mean settling speed with respect to the mean settling speed in quiescent fluid. We explain how different parameters can affect the settling speed and what underlying mechanisms might be involved. Interestingly, we observe that the increase in the aspect ratio of the prolate spheroids can affect the clustering and the average settling speed of particles by two mechanisms: first is the effect of aspect ratio on the rotation rate of the particles, which saturates faster than the second mechanism of increasing drag anisotropy., QC 20170328

In order to examine mechanical interactions between erythrocytes and a blood vessel surface, the frictional characteristics between erythrocytes and plates in plasma have been measured by an inclined centrifuge microscope. The frictional characteristics have been properly reproduced by a numerical simulation of a rigid erythrocyte model assuming a flat bottom surface. However, validity of the assumption has not been confirmed. The purpose of this fundamental study, therefore, was to clarify the behavior of a two-dimensional circular capsule subjected to inclined centrifugal force near a plate in a fluid. An unsteady simulation was performed for various values of the angles of the inclined centrifugal force and membrane elasticity. In equilibrium states, a lubrication domain with high pressure and a large shear stress is formed between the capsule and the base plate, and the bottom surface of the capsule becomes flat with a positive attack angle. The gap distance and translational and rotational velocities increase with decreasing membrane elasticity or increasing centrifugal force angle. The attack angle increases with increasing membrane elasticity or centrifugal force angle. The results in this study qualitatively justified the assumption of the former numerical study that erythrocytes in an inclined centrifuge microscope have a flat bottom surface and its result that they have a positive attack angle in equilibrium state., QC 20171016

QC 20171116

The secondary instability of nonlinear streaks and transition to turbulence in viscoelastic Couette flow are studied using direct numerical simulations. Viscoelasticity is modeled using the FENE-P constitutive equations. Both the polymer concentration beta and Weissenberg number Wi are varied in order to assess their effects on transition at moderate Reynolds number. The base streaks are obtained from nonlinear simulations of the Couette flow response to a streamwise vortex. We select the initial amplitude of the vortex which yields a desired maximum amplitude of the nonlinear streaks during their temporal evolution. The development of streaks in both Newtonian and non-Newtonian flows is primarily due to the action of streamwise vorticity onto the mean shear. In the viscoelastic case, it is also affected by the polymer torque, which opposes the vorticity and becomes more pronounced at large Weissenberg number. Streaks with the same maximum streamwise velocity perturbation can therefore have different total kinetic energy at higher Weissenberg number. At every streak amplitude of interest, harmonic forcing is introduced along the transverse direction to trigger the secondary instability and breakdown to turbulence. We demonstrate that the critical amplitude of the forcing, A(d), increases at large Weissenberg number. The degree of stabilization due to elasticity depends on the initial streak intensity, A(s),(in). For weak streaks the critical amplitude for secondary instability is more sensitive to Wi than for strong ones. This is explained by the existence of two different mechanisms that can trigger transition to turbulence. The perturbation to weak streaks is initially stabilized by the polymer torque which acts to oppose the amplification of wall-normal vorticity and, as a result, delays breakdown to turbulence. The secondary instability of strong streaks, on the other hand, is more immune to this stabilizing influence of the polymer., QC 20170601

We perform numerical simulations of a turbulent channel flow over an hyper-elastic wall. In the fluid region the flow is governed by the incompressible Navier-Stokes (NS) equations, while the solid is a neo-Hookean material satisfying the incompressible Mooney-Rivlin law. The multiphase flow is solved with a one-continuum formulation, using a monolithic velocity field for both the fluid and solid phase, which allows the use of a fully Eulerian formulation. The simulations are carried out at Reynolds bulk Re = 2800 and examine the effect of different elasticity and viscosity of the deformable wall. We show that the skin friction increases monotonically with the material elastic modulus. The turbulent flow in the channel is affected by the moving wall even at low values of elasticity since non-zero fluctuations of vertical velocity at the interface influence the flow dynamics. The near-wall streaks and the associated quasi-streamwise vortices are strongly reduced near a highly elastic wall while the flow becomes more correlated in the spanwise direction, similarly to what happens for flows over rough and porous walls. As a consequence, the mean velocity profile in wall units is shifted downwards when shown in logarithmic scale, and the slope of the inertial range increases in comparison to that for the flow over a rigid wall. We propose a correlation between the downward shift of the inertial range, its slope and the wall-normal velocity fluctuations at the wall, extending results for the flow over rough walls. We finally show that the interface deformation is determined by the fluid fluctuations when the viscosity of the elastic layer is low, while when this is high the deformation is limited by the solid properties., QC 20171124