Numerical Study on the Influence of Particle Inertia in Particle‐Driven Gravity Currents

Abstract

We present two-dimensional numerical simulations of particle-driven gravity currents in a lock-exchange configuration. The fluid is described in an Eulerian framework, whereas the particles are tracked in a Lagrangian manner. The study is restricted to dilute suspensions, allowing to neglect particle-particle interactions. The particle forces considered are buoyancy and the Stokes drag. We study the influence of particle inertia on the flow evolution by performing simulations with different Stokes numbers. We also consider the case where particle inertia is neglected. Generally, we observe significant changes in the form and structure of the gravity current with increasing particle Stokes numbers. Particularly, the formation of Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices is more and more suppressed.