Effect of co-flow velocity ratio on evolution of poly-disperse particles in coaxial turbulent jets: A large-eddy simulation study

In the present work, the particle-laden coaxial turbulent jet flow is studied using large-eddy simulation (LES). An Eulerian-Lagrangian framework is used to study the interaction between the continuous phase (air) and the discrete phase (glass bead particles). The solver is validated, using single-phase and particle-laden simulations, with reference data from experiments. A good match is observed between the present results and the reference data, for centerline velocity decay and radial profiles of axial velocity. Simulations are performed for three co-flow velocity ratios of 0, 1, and 1.5. The results pertaining to particle characteristics are presented for three different particle size-classes. The effect of the co-flow velocity ratio on the particle size-velocity correlation and velocity statistics of both phases are studied with an emphasis on understanding the differences in the particle dispersion due to co-flow around the central jet. It is observed that the particle size-velocity correlation is negative in the potential core region, and it becomes positive as one moves downstream. For heavy particles, the axial distance required to attain the same velocity as that of air increases with an increase in the co-flow velocity ratio. The size-conditioned particle number density profiles along the axial and radial directions of coaxial jets showed some interesting trends that could be explained based on the particle Stokes number effect. Significant radial dispersion of particles is realized when the corresponding Stokes number (StL), defined based on large-scale turbulent eddies, is of the order of one. The axial evolution of the characteristic particle size exhibited non-monotonic trends for all co-flow ratios. Overall, the present work demonstrates potential application of LES for an in-depth study of dispersion of poly-disperse particles in turbulent coaxial jets.