Numerical study on instantaneous discharge of unsorted particle cloud in cross flow

The mixing characteristics of particles such as dredged sediment of variable size discharged into cross flow are studied by a 3D numerical model, which is developed to model the particle-fluid two-phase flow. The Eulerian method with the modified k - epsilon parameterization of turbulence for the fluid phase is used to solve fluid phase, while a Lagrangian method for the solid phase (particles), both the processes are coupled through the momentum sources. In the model the wake turbulence induced by particles has been included as additional source term in the k - epsilon model; and the variable drift velocities of the particles are treated efficiently by the Lagrangian method in which the particles are tracked explicitly and the diffusion process is approximated by a random walk model. The hydrodynamic behavior of dumping a cloud of particles is governed by the total buoyancy of the cloud, the drag force on each particle and the velocity of cross-flow. The computed results show a roughly linear relationship between the displacement of the frontal position and the longitudinal width of the particle cloud. The particle size in the cloud and the velocity of cross flow dominate the flow behavior. The computed results are compared with the results of laboratory experiments and satisfactory agreement is obtained.