Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T08:44:17.870Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Breakup in stochastic Stokes flows: sub-Kolmogorov drops in isotropic turbulence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2003

VITTORIO CRISTINI
Affiliation:
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA 92612, USA
J. BŁAWZDZIEWICZ
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8286, USA
MICHAEL LOEWENBERG
Affiliation:
Department of Chemical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8286, USA
LANCE R. COLLINS
Affiliation:
School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-7501, USA

Abstract

Deformation and breakup of drops in an isotropic turbulent flow has been studied by numerical simulation. The numerical method involves a pseudospectral representation of the turbulent outer flow field coupled to three-dimensional boundary integral simulations of the local drop dynamics. A statistical analysis based on an ensemble of drop trajectories is presented; results include breakup rates, the distribution of primary daughter drops produced by breakup events, and stationary distributions for drop deformation and orientation. Depending on the local flow history, drops may break at modest length or become highly elongated and relax without breaking. Drop deformation is the dominant mechanism of drop reorientation. The volume of the primary daughter drops, produced by a given fluctuation in flow strength, scales with the volume of the corresponding critical drop size for the fluctuation. A simplified description for the evolution of the drop size distribution, based on this scaling, is presented.

Type
Papers
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)