Turbulent mixing time scales

The spatio-temporal variations of the concentration field in turbulent mixing processes are associated wdth very different conditions for chemical reactions in different parts of a reactor. This scenario usually has a detrimental effect on the selectivity of reactions when the reaction time-scale is small compared with the mixing time-scale. Under the same conditions (slow mixing), the process times are increased considerably. Due to mass transfer inhibitions, the true kinetics of a reaction does not show up instead, the mixing determines the time-scale of a process. This effect is known as mixing masking of reactions [126]. 

In the discussion above, we have considered only the velocity field in a turbulent flow. What about the length and time scales for turbulent mixing of a scalar field The general answer to this question is discussed in detail in Fox (2003). Here, we will only consider the simplest case where the scalar field 4> is inert and initially nonpremixed with a scalar integral length scale that is approximately equal to Lu. If we denote the molecular diffusivity of the scalar by T, we can use the kinematic viscosity to define a dimensionless number in the following way ... 

The degree of local mixing in a RANS simulation is measured by the scalar variance (complete mixing (i.e., (j> — (j>) is uniform at the SGS) up to (4>max — (4>))((4>) — 4>min) where () is the mean concentration and max and r/>min are the maximum and minimum values, respectively. The rate of local mixing is controlled by the scalar dissipation rate (Fox, 2003). The scalar time scale analogous to the turbulence integral time scale is (Fox, 2003) as follows ... 

In the literature on turbulent mixing, the mechanical-to-scalar time-scale ratio is defined by... 

In a fully developed turbulent flow, the rate at which the size of a scalar eddy of length l,P decreases depends on its size relative to the turbulence integral scale L and the Kolmogorov scale ij. For scalar eddies in the inertial sub-range (ij < Ip, < Lu), the scalar mixing rate can be approximated by the inverse of the spectral transfer time scale defined in (2.68), p. 42 8... 

Having defined the model scalar energy spectrum, it can now be used to compute the scalar mixing time as a function of Sc and Rk. In the turbulent mixing literature, the scalar mixing time is usually reported in a dimensionless form referred to as the mechanical-to-scalar time-scale ratio R defined by... 

The one-point PDF contains no length-scale information so that scalar dissipation must be modeled. In particular, the mixing time scale must be related to turbulence time scales through a model for the scalar dissipation rate. 

Elgobashi, S. E. and B. E. Launder (1983). Turbulent time scales and the dissipation rate of temperature variance in the thermal mixing layer. The Physics of Fluids 26, 2415-2419. 

Turbulent mixing coefficient Constant of porportionality used in Pick s First and Second Laws to predict changes in solute concentration over time or fluxes from solute gradients that arise from turbulent mixing. The constant is a function of length scales and the degree of density stratification and hence is termed a coefficient . 

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