Advanced continuum modelling of gas-particle flows beyond the hydrodynamic limit

The accurate prediction of dilute gas-particle flows using Euler-Euler models is challenging because particle-particle collisions are usually not dominant in such flows. In other words, in dilute flows the particle Knudsen number is not small enough to justify a Chapman-Enskog expansion about the collision-dominated near-equilibrium limit. Moreover, due to the fluid drag and inelastic collisions, the granular temperature in gas-particle flows is often small compared to the mean particle kinetic energy, implying that the particle-phase Mach number can be very large. In analogy to rarefied gas flows, it is thus not surprising that two-fluid models fail for gas-particle flows with moderate Knudsen and Mach numbers. In this work, a third-order quadrature-based moment method, valid for arbitrary Knudsen number, coupled with a fluid solver has been applied to simulate dilute gas-particle flow in a vertical channel with particle-phase volume fractions between 0.0001 and 0.01. In order to isolate the instabilities that arise due to fluid-particle coupling, a fluid mass flow rate that ensures that turbulence would not develop in a single phase flow (Re = 1380) is employed. Results are compared with the predictions of a two-fluid model with standard kinetic theory based closures for the particle phase. The effect of the particle-phase volume fraction on flow instabilities leading to particle segregation is investigated, and differences with respect to the two-fluid model predictions are examined. The influence of the discretization on the solution of both models is investigated using three different grid resolutions. Radial profiles of phase velocities and particle concentration are shown for the case with an average particle volume fraction of 0.01, showing the flow is in the core-annular regime. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.