arXiv subjects

Francesco Picano

Publications and source records attributed to Francesco Picano.

33 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Reduced particle settling speed in turbulence

We study the settling of finite-size rigid spheres in sustained homogeneous isotropic turbulence (HIT) by direct numerical simulations using an immersed boundary method to account for the dispersed solid phase. We study semi-dilute suspensions at different Galileo numbers, Ga. The Galileo number is the ratio between buoyancy and viscous forces, and is here varied via the solid-to-fluid density ratio. The focus is on particles that are slightly heavier than the fluid. We find that in HIT, the mean settling speed is less than that in quiescent fluid; in particular, it reduces by 6%-60% with respect to the terminal velocity of an isolated sphere in quiescent fluid as the ratio between the latter and the turbulent velocity fluctuations is decreased. Analysing the fluid-particle relative motion, we find that the mean settling speed is progressively reduced while reducing the density ratio due to the increase of the vertical drag induced by the particle cross-flow velocity. Unsteady effects contribute to the mean overall drag by about 6%-10%. The probability density functions of particle velocities and accelerations reveal that these are closely related to the features of the turbulent flow. The particle mean-square displacement in the settling direction is found to be similar for all Ga if time is scaled by (2a)/u' (where 2a is the particle diameter and u' is the turbulence velocity root mean square).

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2016

Heat transfer in laminar Couette flow laden with rigid spherical particles

We study heat transfer in plane Couette flow laden with rigid spherical particles by means of direct numerical simulations using a direct-forcing immersed boundary method to account for the dispersed phase. A volume of fluid approach is employed to solve the temperature field inside and outside of 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 addition, an average composite diffusivity can be used to predict the effective diffusivity of the suspension the inertialess regime when varying the molecular diffusion in the two phases. At finite particle inertia, however, the heat transfer increase is significantly larger, 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 to fluid and particle velocity. We also show that the heat conduction in the solid phase reduces when increasing the particle Reynolds number and 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 increase the total heat transfer.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2016

Flow and dispersion in anisotropic porous media: a Lattice-Boltzmann study

Given their capability of spreading active chemical species and collecting electricity, porous media made of carbon fibers are extensively used as diffusion layers in energy storage systems, such as redox flow batteries. In spite of this, the dispersion dynamics of species inside porous media is still not well understood and often lends itself to different interpretations. Actually, the microscopic design of efficient porous media which can potentially and effectively improve the performances of flow batteries, is a still open challenge. The present study aims to investigate the effect of fibrous media micro-structure on dispersion, in particular the effect of fiber orientation on drag and dispersion dynamics. Several Lattice-Boltzmann simulations of {flows through} differently-oriented fibrous media coupled with Lagrangian simulations of particle tracers have been performed. Results show that orienting fibers preferentially along the streamwise direction minimizes the drag and maximizes the dispersion, which is the most desirable condition for diffusion layers in flow batteries applications.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2016

Universal Scaling Laws for Dense Particle Suspensions in Turbulent Wall-Bounded Flows

The macroscopic behavior of dense suspensions of neutrally-buoyant spheres in turbulent plane channel flow is examined. We show that particles larger than the smallest turbulence scales cause the suspension to deviate from the continuum limit in which its dynamics is well described by an effective suspension viscosity. This deviation is caused by the formation of a particle layer close to the wall with significant slip velocity. By assuming two distinct transport mechanisms in the near-wall layer and the turbulence in the bulk, we define an effective wall location such that the flow in the bulk can still be accurately described by an effective suspension viscosity. We thus propose scaling laws for the mean velocity profile of the suspension flow, together with a master equation able to predict the increase in drag as function of the particle size and volume fraction.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2016

The effect of particle density in turbulent channel flow laden with finite size particles in semi-dilute conditions

We study the effect of varying the mass and volume fraction of a suspension of rigid spheres dispersed in a turbulent channel flow. We performed several Direct Numerical Simulations using an Immersed Boundary Method for finite-size particles changing the solid to fluid density ratio, the mass fraction and the volume fraction. We find that varying the density ratio between 1 and 10 at constant volume fraction does not alter the flow statistics as much as when varying the volume fraction at constant and at constant mass fraction. Interestingly, the increase in overall drag found when varying the volume fraction is considerably higher than that obtained for increasing density ratios at same volume fraction. The main effect at density ratios of the order of 10 is a strong shear-induced migration towards the centerline of the channel. When the density ratio is further increased up to 1000 the particle dynamics decouple from that of the fluid. The solid phase behaves as a dense gas and the fluid and solid phase statistics drastically change. In this regime, the collision rate is high and dominated by the normal relative velocity among particles.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2015

Sedimentation of finite-size spheres in quiescent and turbulent environments

Sedimentation of a dispersed solid phase is widely encountered in applications and environmental flows, yet little is known about the behavior of finite-size particles in homogeneous isotropic turbulence. To fill this gap, we perform Direct Numerical Simulations of sedimentation in quiescent and turbulent environments using an Immersed Boundary Method to account for the dispersed rigid spherical particles. The solid volume fractions considered are 0.5-1%, while the solid to fluid density ratio 1.02. The particle radius is chosen to be approximately 6 Komlogorov lengthscales. The results show that the mean settling velocity is lower in an already turbulent flow than in a quiescent fluid. The reduction with respect to a single particle in quiescent fluid is about 12\% and 14\% for the two volume fractions investigated. The probability density function of the particle velocity is almost Gaussian in a turbulent flow, whereas it displays large positive tails in quiescent fluid. These tails are associated to the intermittent fast sedimentation of particle pairs in drafting-kissing-tumbling motions. The particle lateral dispersion is higher in a turbulent flow, whereas the vertical one is, surprisingly, of comparable magnitude as a consequence of the highly intermittent behavior observed in the quiescent fluid. Using the concept of mean relative velocity we estimate the mean drag coefficient from empirical formulas and show that non stationary effects, related to vortex shedding, explain the increased reduction in mean settling velocity in a turbulent environment.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2015

Continuous growth of droplet size variance due to condensation in turbulent clouds

We use a stochastic model and direct numerical simulation to study the impact of turbulence on cloud droplet growth by condensation. We show that the variance of the droplet size distribution increases in time as t^{1/2}, with growth rate proportional to the large-to-small turbulent scale separation and to the turbulence integral scales but independent of the mean turbulent dissipation. Direct numerical simulations confirm this result and produce realistically broad droplet size spectra over time intervals of 20 minutes, comparable with the time of rain formation.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2015

Rheology of confined non-Brownian suspensions

We study the rheology of confined suspensions of neutrally buoyant rigid monodisperse spheres in plane-Couette flow using Direct Numerical Simulations. We find that if the width of the channel is a (small) integer multiple of the sphere's diameter, the spheres self-organize into two-dimensional layers that slide on each other and the suspension's effective viscosity is significantly reduced. Each two-dimensional layer is found to be structurally liquid-like but their dynamics is frozen in time.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2015

Channel flow of rigid sphere suspensions: particle dynamics in the inertial regime

We consider suspensions of neutrally-buoyant finite-size rigid spherical particles in channel flow and investigate the relation between the particle dynamics and the mean bulk behavior of the mixture for Reynolds numbers $500 \le Re \le 5000$ and particle volume fraction $0\le Φ\le 0.3$, via fully resolved numerical simulations. Analysis of the momentum balance reveals the existence of three different regimes: laminar, turbulent and inertial shear-thickening depending on which of the stress terms, viscous, Reynolds or particle stress, is the major responsible for the momentum transfer across the channel. We show that both Reynolds and particle stress dominated flows fall into the Bagnoldian inertial regime and that the Bagnold number can predict the bulk behavior although this is due to two distinct physical mechanisms. A turbulent flow is characterized by larger particle dispersion and a more uniform particle distribution, whereas the particulate-dominated flows is associated with a significant particle migration towards the channel center where the flow is smooth laminar-like and dispersion low.Interestingly, the collision kernel shows similar values in the different regimes, although the relative particle velocity and clustering clearly vary with inertia and particle concentration.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2015

Numerical simulations of aggregate breakup in bounded and unbounded turbulent flows

Breakup of small aggregates in fully developed turbulence is studied by means of direct numerical simulations in a series of typical bounded and unbounded flow configurations, such as a turbulent channel flow, a developing boundary layer and homogeneous isotropic turbulence. The simplest criterion for breakup is adopted, whereas aggregate breakup occurs when the local hydrodynamic stress $σ\sim \varepsilon^{1/2}$, with $\varepsilon$ being the energy dissipation at the position of the aggregate, overcomes a given threshold $σ_\mathrm{cr}$, which is characteristic for a given type of aggregates. Results show that the breakup rate decreases with increasing threshold. For small thresholds, it develops a universal scaling among the different flows. For high thresholds, the breakup rates show strong differences between the different flow configurations, highlighting the importance of non-universal mean-flow properties. To further assess the effects of flow inhomogeneity and turbulent fluctuations, theresults are compared with those obtained in a smooth stochastic flow. Furthermore, we discuss the limitations and applicability of a set of independent proxies.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2015

Transition and self-sustained turbulence in dilute suspensions of finite-size particles

We study the transition to turbulence of channel flow of finite-size particle suspensions at low volume fraction, i.e. $Φ\approx 0.001$. The critical Reynolds number above which turbulence is sustained reduces to $Re \approx 1675$, in the presence of few particles, independently of the initial condition, a value lower than that of the corresponding single-phase flow, i.e. $Re\approx1775$. In the dilute suspension, the initial arrangement of the particles is important to trigger the transition at a fixed Reynolds number and particle volume fraction. As in single phase flows, streamwise elongated disturbances are initially induced in the flow. If particles can induce oblique disturbances with high enough energy within a certain time, the streaks breakdown, flow experiences the transition to turbulence and the particle trajectories become chaotic. Otherwise, the streaks decay in time and the particles immigrate towards the channel core in a laminar flow.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2014

Laminar, turbulent and inertial shear-thickening regimes in channel flow of neutrally buoyant particle suspensions

The aim of this Letter is to characterize the flow regimes of suspensions of finite-size rigid particles in a viscous fluid at finite inertia. We explore the system behavior as function of the particle volume fraction and the Reynolds number (the ratio of flow and particle inertia to viscous forces). Unlike single phase flows where a clear distinction exists between the laminar and the turbulent states, three different regimes can be identified in the presence of a particulate phase, with smooth transitions between them. At low volume fractions, the flow becomes turbulent when increasing the Reynolds number, transitioning from the laminar regime dominated by viscous forces to the turbulent regime characterized by enhanced momentum transport by turbulent eddies. At larger volume fractions, we identify a new regime characterized by an even larger increase of the wall friction. The wall friction increases with the Reynolds number (inertial effects) while the turbulent transport is weakly affected, as in a state of intense inertial shear-thickening. This state may prevent the transition to a fully turbulent regime at arbitrary high speed of the flow.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2014

The effect of the Basset history force on particle clustering in Homogeneous and Isotropic Turbulence

We study the effect of the Basset history force on the dynamics of small particles transported in homogeneous and isotropic turbulence and show that this term, often neglected in previous numerical studies, reduces the small-scale clustering typical of inertial particles. The contribution of this force to the total particle acceleration is, on average, responsible for about 10% of the total acceleration and particularly relevant during rare strong events. At moderate density ratios, i.e. sand or metal powder in water, its presence alters the balance of forces determining the particle acceleration.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2014

Turbulent mixing of a slightly supercritical Van der Waals fluid at Low-Mach number

Supercritical fluids near the critical point are characterized by liquid-like densities and gas-like transport properties. These features are purposely exploited in different contexts ranging from natural products extraction/fractionation to aerospace propulsion. Large part of studies concerns this last context, focusing on the dynamics of supercritical fluids at high Mach number where compressibility and thermodynamics strictly interact. Despite the widespread use also at low Mach number, the turbulent mixing properties of slightly supercritical fluids have still not investigated in detail in this regime. This topic is addressed here by dealing with Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) of a coaxial jet of a slightly supercritical Van der Waals fluid. Since acoustic effects are irrelevant in the Low Mach number conditions found in many industrial applications, the numerical model is based on a suitable low-Mach number expansion of the governing equation. According to experimental observations, the weakly supercritical regime is characterized by the formation of finger-like structures-- the so-called ligaments --in the shear layers separating the two streams. The mechanism of ligament formation at vanishing Mach number is extracted from the simulations and a detailed statistical characterization is provided. Ligaments always form whenever a high density contrast occurs, independently of real or perfect gas behaviors. The difference between real and perfect gas conditions is found in the ligament small-scale structure. More intense density gradients and thinner interfaces characterize the near critical fluid in comparison with the smoother behavior of the perfect gas. A phenomenological interpretation is here provided on the basis of the real gas thermodynamics properties.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2013

Shear thickening in non-Brownian suspensions: an excluded volume effect

Shear thickening appears as an increase of the viscosity of a dense suspension with the shear rate, sometimes sudden and violent at high volume fraction. Its origin for noncolloidal suspension with non-negligible inertial effects is still debated. Here we consider a simple shear flow and demonstrate that fluid inertia causes a strong microstructure anisotropy that results in the formation of a shadow region with no relative flux of particles. We show that shear thickening at finite inertia can be explained as an increase of the effective volume fraction when considering the dynamically excluded volume due to these shadow regions

physics.flu-dyn↗