This paper presents a detailed investigation of flow topologies in bubble-induced two-phase turbulence. Two freely moving and deforming air bubbles that have been suspended in liquid water under counterflow conditions have been considered for this analysis. The direct numerical simulation data considered here are based on the one-fluid formulation of the two-phase flow governing equations. To study the development of coherent structures, a local flow topology analysis is performed. Using the invariants of the velocity gradient tensor, all possible small-scale flow structures can be categorized into two nodal and two focal topologies for incompressible turbulent flows. The volume fraction of focal topologies in the gaseous phase is consistently higher than in the surrounding liquid phase. This observation has been argued to be linked to a strong vorticity production at the regions of simultaneous high fluid velocity and high interface curvature. Depending on the regime (steady/laminar or unsteady/turbulent), additional effects related to the density and viscosity jump at the interface influence the behaviour. The analysis also points to a specific term of the vorticity transport equation as being responsible for the induction of vortical motion at the interface. Besides the known mechanisms, this term, related to surface tension and gradients of interface curvature, represents another potential source of turbulence production that lends itself to further investigation.

Three-dimensional Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) with a modified single-step Arrhenius chemistry have been used to analyse spherically expanding n-heptane flames propagating into mono-sized fuel droplet mists for different droplet diameters and an overall equivalence ratio of unity. The evolutions of flame surface area and burned gas volume for both laminar and turbulent spherically expanding droplet flames have been compared to the corresponding gaseous stoichiometric premixed spherically expanding flames with the same initial burned gas radius. It has been found that the initial droplet diameter significantly affects the burned gas volume and flame area generation, which increase with decreasing droplet diameter for both laminar and turbulent cases. The droplet-flame interaction plays a key role in determining flame wrinkling under laminar conditions, which is reflected in a range of local curvatures for a given reaction progress variable isosurface, whereas each progress variable isosurface in spherically expanding laminar premixed flames exhibits a single value of curvature. The effect of droplet-induced curvature becomes less distinguishable from turbulence-induced wrinkling for the turbulent cases considered here but the reaction progress variable isosurfaces in droplet cases exhibit wider curvature probability density functions than in the corresponding turbulent premixed flame cases. It has been found that heat release rate arises principally from premixed mode in small droplet cases, whereas the contribution of the non-premixed mode to the overall heat release rate increases with increasing droplet diameter and turbulence intensity.

No abstract

The local flow topology analysis of the primary atomization of liquid jets has been conducted using the invariants of the velocity-gradient tensor. All possible small-scale flow structures are categorized into two focal and two nodal topologies for incompressible flows in both liquid and gaseous phases. The underlying direct numerical simulation database was generated by the one-fluid formulation of the two-phase flow governing equations including a high-fidelity volume-of-fluid method for accurate interface propagation. The ratio of liquid-to-gas fluid properties corresponds to a diesel jet exhausting into air. Variation of the inflow-based Reynolds number as well as Weber number showed that both these non-dimensional numbers play a pivotal role in determining the nature of the jet break-up, but the flow topology behaviour appears to be dominated by the Reynolds number. Furthermore, the flow dynamics in the gaseous phase is generally less homogeneous than in the liquid phase because some flow regions resemble a laminar-to-turbulent transition state rather than fully developed turbulence. Two theoretical models are proposed to estimate the topology volume fractions and to describe the size distribution of the flow structures, respectively. In the latter case, a simple power law seems to be a reasonable approximation of the measured topology spectrum. According to that observation, only the integral turbulent length scale would be required as an input for the a priori prediction of the topology size spectrum.

Compared to Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of single-phase flows, which has become a mature and viable turbulence modelling technique, the LES of two-phase flows with moving immiscible interfaces is at a rather early development stage. There is no standard set of governing equations for two-phase flow LES, but rather a variety of different formulations, all with advantages and disadvantages. This paper discusses and analyses in detail the governing equations for two-phase flow LES in the context of the Volume of Fluid method, as well as suitable Subgrid Scale closures for the different unknown terms. A particular focus is on the Favre filtered one fluid formulation of the momentum equations, but a comparison with the filtered and the volume averaged version of the balance equations is made as well. Differences and commonalities between the different approaches are discussed and, based on a priori analysis of explicitly filtered Direct Numerical Simulation data, suitable closure models for a posteriori analysis are identified.