Direct Numerical Simulations of the particle laden flow over a cylinder

Fluid flow around the bluff body has applications in various industrial fields and natural phenomena. Particles present in the flow add to the complexity due to interaction between the particle and fluid phases as well as particle collisions that can lead to flow modification. Our initial DNS study on particle clustering in a vertical channel flow showed that particle dispersion in the flow is greatly affected by the Reynolds number, particle Stokes number and mass loading. The cluster area is found to be larger at the channel center in comparison to the near-wall region. Also, turbulence suppression is observed at higher particle loading leading to uniform particle distribution. The current study focuses on the effect of Reynolds number and particle Stokes number on vortex shedding and particle clustering occurring in the flow. Flow over the cylinder is carried out using fully coupled Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS). Here, the point-particle approach is used for the suspended phase and the particle collisions are assumed to be perfectly elastic in nature. The vortex structures are identified by the Q-criterion and voronoi tessellation is employed to study the particle clustering in the flow. The effect of bluff body induced vortex separation over particle dispersion will be discussed.