Three-dimensional turbulent particle dispersion submodel development. Final report, 15 April 1991--15 April 1993

Many practical combustion processes which use solid particles, liquid droplets, or slurries as fuels introduce these fuels into turbulent environments. Examples include spray combustion, pulverized coal and coal slurry combustion, fluidized beds, sorbent injection, and hazardous waste incineration. The interactions of the condensed phases with turbulent environments in such applications have not been well described. Such a description is complicated by the difficulty of describing turbulence in general, even in the absence of particles or droplets. But the complications in describing the dispersion and reaction of the condensed phases in turbulent environments do not stem entirely, or even primarily, from the uncertainties in the description of the turbulence. Even when the turbulence characteristics are known, computational methods for coupling the dynamics of the particulate phase with the continuous phase have not been well established. Several new theoretical descriptions of the turbulent dispersion of particles and droplets have been proposed over the past few years. It has been the purpose of this project to explore the potential of these theories for coupling with the other aspects of three-dimensional, reacting, turbulent, particle-laden systems, to provide computational simulations that could be useful for addressing industrial problems. Two different approaches were explored in this project. The major thrust of this project was on identifying a suitable dispersion submodel for dilute dispersed flows, implementing it in a comprehensive three-dimensional CFD code framework for combustion simulation and evaluating its performance rigorously. In another effort the potential of a dispersion submodel for densely loaded systems was analyzed. This report discusses the main issues that were resolved as part of this project