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Polydispersed particles in reactive flows is a wide subject area encompassing a range of dispersed flows with particles, droplets or bubbles that are created, transported and possibly interact within a reactive flow environment -typical examples include soot formation, aerosols, precipitation and spray combustion. One way to treat such problems is to employ as a starting point the Newtonian equations of motion written in a Lagrangian framework for each individual particle and either solve them directly or derive probabilistic equations for the particle positions (in the case of turbulent flow). Another way is inherently statistical and begins by postulating a distribution of particles over the distributed properties, as well as space and time, the transport equation for this distribution being the core of this approach. This transport equation, usually referred to as population balance equation (PBE) or general dynamic equation (GDE), was initially developed and investigated mainly in the context of spatially homogeneous systems. In the recent years, a growth of research activity has seen this approach being applied to a variety of flow problems such as sooting flames and turbulent precipitation, but significant issues regarding its appropriate coupling with CFD pertain, especially in the case of turbulent flow. The objective of this review is to examine this body of research from a unified perspective, the potential and limits of the PBE approach to flow problems, its links with Lagrangian and multifluid approaches and the numerical methods employed for its solution. Particular emphasis is given to turbulent flows, where the extension of the PBE approach is met with challenging issues. Finally, applications including reactive precipitation, soot formation, nanoparticle synthesis, sprays, bubbles and coal burning are being reviewed from the PBE perspective. It is shown that popualtion balance methods have been applied to these fields in varying degrees of detail, and future prospects are discussed.

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In this work, a methodology for the tabulation of combustion mechanisms via Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) is presented. The objective of the methodology is to train the ANN using samples generated via an abstract problem, such that they span the composition space of a family of combustion problems. The abstract problem in this case is an ensemble of laminar flamelets with an artificial pilot in mixture fraction space to emulate ignition, of varying strain rate up to well into the extinction range. The composition space thus covered anticipates the regions visited in a typical simulation of a non-premixed flame. The ANN training consists of two-stage process: clustering of the composition space into subdomains using the Self-Organising Map (SOM) and regression within each subdomain via the multilayer Perceptron (MLP). The approach is then employed to tabulate a mechanism of CH 4-air combustion, based on GRI 1.2 and reduced via Rate-Controlled Constrained Equilibrium (RCCE) and Computational Singular Perturbation (CSP). The mechanism is then applied to simulate the Sydney Flame L, a turbulent non-premixed flame that features significant levels of local extinction and re-ignition. The flow field is resolved through Large Eddy Simulation (LES), while the transported Probability Density Function (PDF) approach is employed for modelling the turbulence-chemistry interaction and solved numerically via the Stochastic Fields method. Results demonstrate reasonable agreement with experiments, indicating that the SOM-MLP approach provides a good representation of the composition space, while the great savings in CPU time allow for a simulation to be performed with a comprehensive combustion model, such as the LES-PDF, with modest CPU resources such as a workstation.