The particulate phase stress and solid–solid drag force in the multifluid modeling of polydisperse gas–solid flows are usually closed using kinetic theory. This research aims to establish the hydrodynamic equations and constitutive relations of the multifluid model for polydisperse systems via species kinetic theory, in which the non-equipartition of energy and interphase slip velocity between different species are considered. Whereas previous studies have used approximations, such as Taylor series expansions, to simplify the calculation of collision integrals, the present study, for the first time, solves the collision integrals analytically without any approximations to obtain accurate constitutive relations. Explicit expressions for the constitutive laws are obtained, including the particle stress tensor, solid–solid drag force, heat flux, and energy dissipation rate up to the Navier–Stokes order. The present study offers more complete and mathematically rigorous constitutive laws for the multifluid modeling of polydisperse gas–solid flows.

Continuum modelling of dense gas–solid flows strongly depends on the constitutive relations used, including the interphase drag force, particle phase stress and the boundary condition for particle–wall interactions. The lack of scale separation is usually claimed to cause the breakdown of the Navier–Stokes (NS) order continuum theory. In this study, computational fluid dynamics–discrete element method (CFD-DEM) simulations of bubbling, turbulent and fast fluidization of smooth, inelastic spheres were conducted to systematically analyse the valid range of NS theory. An entropy-based criterion $I_{s}$ and Knudsen numbers defined using different characteristic length scales ($Kn_{frac}$, $Kn_{gran}$ and $Kn_{vel}$) were quantified. It was found that (i) except at the centre of bubbles where the solid concentration is quite low, NS theory for discrete particles was valid for bubbling fluidization irrespective of the breakdown criterion. Even at the boundary of the bubbles, values of $I_{s}$ and $Kn$ were small; and (ii) the conclusion depended on the criterion used in turbulent and fast fluidization. If $Kn_{frac}$ was used, NS theory would be generally valid. If $I_{s}$ was chosen, NS theory would be still valid but with lower confidence. However, if $Kn_{vel}$ or $Kn_{gran}$ was selected, NS theory broke down. Because $I_{s}$ includes the non-equilibrium effects caused by the gradient of hydrodynamic fields and particle inelasticity, we may conclude that NS theory was valid for all tested cases. This means that the continuum description of discrete particles is not the main source of the breakdown of NS theory.

Mesoscience has recently been proposed as a possible general concept for describing complex systems far from equilibrium, however, concrete formulations are needed, and particularly, a statistical mechanics foundation of mesoscience remains to be explored. To this end, the mathematical theory of stochastic geometry is combined with the energy minimization multi-scale (EMMS) principle under the concept of mesoscience to propose a statistical mechanics framework. An EMMS-based particle velocity distribution function is then derived as an example to show how the proposed framework works, and more importantly, as a first key step toward a generalized kinetic theory for heterogeneous gas-solid flow. It was shown that the resultant EMMS-based distribution is bimodal, instead of the widely-used Maxwellian distribution, but it reduces to the Maxwellian distribution when the gas-solid system is homogeneous. The EMMS-based distribution is finally validated by comparing its prediction of the variance of solid concentration fluctuation and granular temperature with experimental data available in literature.