Turbulent transport of material particles: An experimental study of finite size effects

Muhammad Nauman Qureshi (1) , Mickaël Bourgoin (1) , Christophe Baudet (1) , Alain H. Cartellier (1) , Yves Gagne (1)

1 LEGI - Laboratoire des Écoulements Géophysiques et Industriels [Grenoble]

We present experimental Lagrangian statistics of finite sized, neutrally bouyant, particles transported in an isotropic turbulent flow. The particle's diameter is varied over turbulent inertial scales. Finite size effects are shown not to be trivially related to velocity intermittency. The global shape of the particle's acceleration probability density functions is not found to depend significantly on its size while the particle's acceleration variance decreases as it becomes larger in quantitative agreement with the classical k(-7/3) scaling for the spectrum of Eulerian pressure fluctuations in the carrier flow.

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

Muhammad Nauman Qureshi, Mickaël Bourgoin, Christophe Baudet, Alain H. Cartellier, Yves Gagne. Turbulent transport of material particles: An experimental study of finite size effects. Physical Review Letters, 2007, 99 (18), pp.184502. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.184502⟩. ⟨hal-00492322⟩