Assessment of turbulent dispersion models for bubbly flows in the low Stokes number limit

Two-fluid turbulent dispersion models have been compared with direct numerical simulations (DNS) of a decaying turbulence bubbly flow in the low Stokes number limit, St≈10−3. Because of the absence of empiricism, DNS results represent an excellent means of assessing turbulent dispersion models. Sufficiently far away from the inlet of the channel, where the turbulence was fully developed, these turbulent dispersion models were able to predict the DNS results when a Schmidt number, Scb=0.83, was used. This result highlights the fact that even bubbles of diameter, Db=42 μm, considerably smaller than the Kolmogorov length scale, η=75 μm, do not behave as passive scalars for which Scb=1. In addition, these models were also assessed against a bubbly mixing layer flow having a low Stokes number, St<10−2. Most of the models successfully predicted these mixing layer data. Moreover, for Stokes numbers much smaller than unity several of the models were virtually identical. No adjustable coefficients were used in the mixing layer data comparisons.