Large-eddy simulation study of charged inertial particles in high Reynolds number turbulent channel flow

We present results from large-eddy simulations (LES) of turbulent channel flow at high Reynolds number of order O($10^9$) with suspended charged particles. The overarching goal of this work is to develop an LES framework for the simulations of sandstorms as charged particle-laden flow. The present investigation relies on simulating multi-physical two-phase (fluid and charged particles) turbulent flows in which the fluid flow is governed by the Navier-Stokes equationsin a LES setting employing the stretched spiral vortex subgrid-scale model and a virtual wall model, while sand particles are modeled using an Eulerian approach via a simplified version of the Direct Quadrature Method of Moments. The electrostatic approximation is used to model the interaction of charged solid particles. Preliminary results show fluctuations of the electrical field in the flow in reasonable agreement with some field observations in sandstorms. The effects of different sand particle distributions, and turbulent intensities on the root-mean-square of the generated electric fields will be examined.