Particle tracking Lagrangian approach

The Euler Lagrangian approach is very common in the field of dilute dispersed two-phase flow. Already in the mid 1980s, a particle tracking routine was available in the commercial CFD-code FLUENT. In the Euler-Lagrangian approach, the dispersed phase is conceived as a collection of individual particles (solid particles, droplets, bubbles) for which the equations of motion can be solved individually. The particles are conceived as point particles which move... 

As a matter of fact, in comparison with the Euler-Lagrangian approach, the complete Eulerian (or Euler-Euler) approach may better comply with denser two-phase flows, i.e., with higher volume fractions of the dispersed phase, when tracking individual particles is no longer doable in view of the computational times involved and the computer memory required, and when the physical interactions become too dominating to be ignored. Under these circumstances, the motion of individual particles may be overlooked and it is wiser to opt for a more superficial strategy that, however, still has to take the proper physics into account. 

In simulating physical operations carried out in stirred vessels, generally one has the choice between a Lagrangian approach and a Eulerian description. While the former approach is based on tracking the paths of many individual fluid elements or dispersed-phase particles, the latter exploits the continuum concept. The two approaches offer different vistas on the operations and require different computational capabilities. Which of the two approaches is most... 

Attempts to extend RANS formulation to LES of two-phase combustion may be found in [318 354 317 255 292]. They are all based on a Euler-Lagrange (EL) description of the dispersed phase in which the flow is solved using an Eulerian method and the particles are tracked with a Lagrangian approach. An alternative is the Euler-Euler (EE) description, also called two-fluid approach, in which both the gas and the dispersed phases are... 

In order to obtain a correlation, the outflow of the effervescent spray was simulated by a numerical model based on the Navier-Stokes equations and the particle tracking method. The external gas flow was considered turbulent. In droplet phase modeling, Lagrangian approach was followed. Droplet primary and secondary breakup were considered in their model. Secondary breakup consisted of cascade atomization, droplet collision, and coalescence. The droplet mean diameter under different operating conditions and liquid properties were calculated for the spray SMD using the curve fitting technique [43] ... 

The main advantage of the Eulerian-Lagrangian formulation comes from the fact that each individual bubble is modeled, allowing consideration of additional effects related to bubble-bubble and bubble-liquid interactions. Mass transfer with and without chemical reaction, bubble coalescence, and redispersion, in principle, can be added directly to an Eulerian-Lagrangian hydrodynamic model. The main disadvantage of the Eulerian-Lagrangian approach is that only a limited number of particles (bubbles) can be tracked, such as when the superficial gas velocity is low (Chen et al., 2005), due to computer limitations. 

Particle trajectory is the result of the interaction of the particle with the electric field and the flow field. To simulate the particle trajectories, there are two approaches. The first approach is the Lagrangian tracking method, which neglects the finite size of the particles and treats them as point particles and solves the field variables without the presence of the particles [8]. In this case, only the effect of the field variables on the particle is considered. The second approach is the stress tensor approach, which includes the size effect of the particle. In this approach, the field variables are solved with the presence of the finitesized particle, and the particle translates as a result of the interaction of the particle with the electric and flow field [8]. In each incremental movement of the particle, the field variables need to be resolved. The former approach is very simple and works good to some extent, and the latter approach is accurate yet computationally expensive. 

With this approach the fluid phase is generally treated with DNS and the disperse phase is described with point particles, whose evolution is generally treated with Lagrangian tracking. In this case, since the fluid-solid interface is not resolved, some form of correction is needed. 

---