2012, Bordás, Robert, John, Volker, Schmeyer, Ellen, Thévenin, Dominique

A droplet size distribution in a turbulent flow field is considered and modeled by means of a population balance system. This paper studies different numerical methods for the 4D population balance equation and their impact on an output of interest, the time-space-averaged droplet size distribution at the outlet which is known from experiments. These methods include different interpolations of the experimental data at the inlet, various discretizations in time and space, and different schemes for computing the aggregation integrals. It will be shown that notable changes in the output of interest might occur. In addition, the efficiency of the studied methods is discussed.

2011, Bordás, Robert, John, Volker, Schmeyer, Ellen, Thévenin, Domnique

The interaction of a disperse droplet population (spray) in a turbulent flow field is studied by combining wind tunnel experiments with simulations based on the model of a population balance system. The behavior of the droplets is modeled numerically by a population balance equation. Velocities of the air and of the droplets are determined by non-intrusive measurements. A direct discretization of the 4D equation for the droplet size distribution is used in the simulations. Important components of the numerical algorithm are a variational multiscale method for turbulence modeling, an upwind scheme for the 4D equation and a pre-processing approach to evaluate the aggretation integrals. The simulations of this system accurately predict the modifications of the droplet size distribution from the inlet to the outlet of the measurement section. Since the employed configuration is simple and considering that all measurement data are freely available thanks to an Internet-based repository, the considered experiment is proposed as a benchmark problem for the simulation of disperse two-phase turbulent flows.