The levitation of a sphere by two parallel turbulent jets

Thomas Barois (1) , Guillaume Ricard , Victor Champain , Lucas Gey , Hamid Kellay (1)

1 LOMA - Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d'Aquitaine

Two vertical turbulent round jets are used to levitate a spherical particle. First, a symmetric configuration is investigated with the two jets of equal flow rates. A structure reminiscent of a pitchfork bifurcation is reported and characterized between a double trap configuration for low flow rates and a single trap regime at larger flow rates. A second configuration is then studied with the flow rates that differ between the left and the right jets. In this case, a preferential transition towards the jet of higher flow rate is reported and quantified. A model is presented predicting the force field for the symmetric and the asymmetric configurations. The model is compared to the force field measurements realized with a particle on a flexible cantilever. Finally, a particle dynamics simulation is proposed to analyze in more details the transition for the levitation in the symmetric and the asymmetric configurations.

Domaines: Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]

Thomas Barois, Guillaume Ricard, Victor Champain, Lucas Gey, Hamid Kellay. The levitation of a sphere by two parallel turbulent jets. Physics of Fluids, 2020, 32 (4), pp.045111. ⟨10.1063/5.0002955⟩. ⟨hal-02553316⟩