Velocity and acceleration statistics in particle-laden turbulent swirling flows

Abstract

We present a comparison of different particles' velocity and acceleration statistics in two paradigmatic turbulent swirling flows: the von Kármán flow in a laboratory experiment and the Taylor-Green flow in direct numerical simulations. Tracers, as well as inertial particles, are considered. Results indicate that, in spite of the differences in boundary conditions and forcing mechanisms, scaling properties and statistical quantities reveal similarities between both flows, pointing to new methods to calibrate and compare models for particles dynamics in numerical simulations, as well as to characterize the dynamics of particles in simulations and experiments. The comparison also allows us to identify contributions of the mean flow to the inertial-range scaling of the particles' velocity structure functions.