Clustering and collisions of heavy particles in random smooth flows
Abstract
Finite-size impurities suspended in incompressible flows distribute inhomogeneously, leading to a drastic enhancement of collisions. A description of the dynamics in the full position-velocity phase space is essential to understand the underlying mechanisms, especially for polydisperse suspensions. These issues are here studied for particles much heavier than the fluid by means of a Lagrangian approach. It is shown that inertia enhances collision rates through two effects: correlation among particle positions induced by the carrier flow and uncorrelation between velocities due to their finite size. A phenomenological model yields an estimate of collision rates for particle pairs with different sizes. This approach is supported by numerical simulations in random flows.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.nlin/0407013,
title = {Clustering and collisions of heavy particles in random smooth flows},
author = {J. Bec and A. Celani and M. Cencini and S. Musacchio},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:nlin/0407013},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
12 pages, 9 Figures (revTeX 4) final published version