Turbulent flow kinetic energy

Means for generating strong large-scale turbulence, thus a larger fraction of the average flow kinetic energy can be randomized... 

One-equation models relax the assumption that production and dissipation of turbulence are equal at all points of the flow field. Some effects of the upstream turbulence are incorporated by introducing a transport equation for the turbulence kinetic energy k (20) given by... 

The balanced equation for turbulent kinetic energy in a reacting turbulent flow contains the terms that represent production as a result of mean flow shear, which can be influenced by combustion, and the terms that represent mean flow dilations, which can remove turbulent energy as a result of combustion. Some of the discrepancies between turbulent flame propagation speeds might be explained in terms of the balance between these competing effects. 

The kinetic energy attributable to this velocity will be dissipated when the liquid enters the reservoir. The pressure drop may now be calculated from the energy balance equation and equation 3.19. For turbulent flow of an incompressible fluid ... 

This response time should be compared to the turbulent eddy lifetime to estimate whether the drops will follow the turbulent flow. The timescale for the large turbulent eddies can be estimated from the turbulent kinetic energy k and the rate of dissipation e, Xc = 30-50 ms, for most chemical reactors. The Stokes number is an estimation of the effect of external flow on the particle movement, St = r /tc. If the Stokes number is above 1, the particles will have some random movement that increases the probability for coalescence. If St 1, the drops move with the turbulent eddies, and the rates of collisions and coalescence are very small. Coalescence will mainly be seen in shear layers at a high volume fraction of the dispersed phase. 

Evaluate the kinetic energy correction factor a in Bernoulli s equation for turbulent flow assuming that the 1/7 power law velocity profile [Eq. (6-36)] is valid. Repeat this for laminar flow of a Newtonian fluid in a tube, for which the velocity profile is parabolic. 

The a s are the kinetic energy correction factors at the upstream and downstream points (recall that a = 2 for laminar flow and a = 1 for turbulent flow for a Newtonian fluid). 

As a result, the turbulent-flow field in a stirred vessel may be far from isotropic and homogeneous. Some of the cornerstones of turbulence theory, however, start from the assumption that production and dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy balance locally. In many chemical engineering flows, this... 

In whichever approach, the common denominator of most operations in stirred vessels is the common notion that the rate e of dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy is a reliable measure for the effect of the turbulent-flow characteristics on the operations of interest such as carrying out chemical reactions, suspending solids, or dispersing bubbles. As this e may be conceived as a concentration of a passive tracer, i.e., in terms of W/kg rather than of m2/s3, the spatial variations in e may be calculated by means of a usual transport equation. 

As mentioned before in Eq. (3), the most common source of SGS phenomena is turbulence due to the Reynolds number of the flow. It is thus important to understand what the principal length and time scales in turbulent flow are, and how they depend on Reynolds number. In a CFD code, a turbulence model will provide the local values of the turbulent kinetic energy k and the turbulent dissipation rate s. These quantities, combined with the kinematic viscosity of the fluid v, define the length and time scales given in Table I. Moreover, they define the local turbulent Reynolds number ReL also given in the table. 

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