Particle Transport in Unsteady, Separated Flow

Particle Transport in Unsteady, Separated FlowGustaaf JacobsProfessor
Department of Aerospace Engineering & Engineering Mechanics
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182Particle-laden and droplet-laden flows occur in many important natural and technological situations, e.g. aerosol transport and deposition, spray combustion in gas turbine engines, fluidized bed combustion, plasma spray coating and synthesis of nanoparticles. Particles frequently interact with a flow that separates from a wall. Liquid droplets are for example injected into the flow that separates at a sudden expanding geometry in dump combustors. Sand particles well up in the separated flow behind hills or plankton is dispersed in the detached flow behind uneven ocean floor obstacles. Mixing levels and drag overhead crucial to the combustor performance, pollution levels or plankton concentration are strongly affected by the flow separation and particle dynamics. In this talk I will discuss the physics of particles in a separated flow in the Lagrangian frame (i.e. the frame moving with the particle) and the computation of these flows with high-fidelity computational methods. After a brief discussion of the characteristics and advantages of high-order discontinuous spectral element methods for simulation of unsteady particle-laden separated flow, I present recent criteria that identify the separation location and angle of fluid particles from walls in unsteady and three dimensional setting. The Lagrangian dynamics of finite sized particles is discussed and compared to the Lagrangian fluid particle motion and Lagrangian coherent structures.

Location: Stauffer Science Lecture Hall, Room 102 (SLH 102)

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: April Mundy