Meso-scale structures that take the form of clusters and streamers are commonly observed in dilute gas–particle flows, such as those encountered in risers. Continuum equations for gas–particle flows, coupled with constitutive equations for particle-phase stress deduced from kinetic theory of granular materials, can capture the formation of such meso-scale structures. These structures arise as a result of an inertial instability associated with the relative motion between the gas and particle phases, and an instability due to damping of the fluctuating motion of particles by the interstitial fluid and inelastic collisions between particles. It is demonstrated that the meso-scale structures are too small, and hence too expensive, to be resolved completely in simulation of gas–particle flows in large process vessels. At the same time, failure to resolve completely the meso-scale structures in a simulation leads to grossly inaccurate estimates of inter-phase drag, production/dissipation of pseudo-thermal energy associated with particle fluctuations, the effective particle-phase pressure and the effective viscosities. It is established that coarse-grid simulation of gas–particle flows must include sub-grid models, to account for the effects of the unresolved meso-scale structures. An approach to developing a plausible sub-grid model is proposed.

in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).Starting from a kinetic theory based two-fluid model for gas-particle flows, we first construct filtered two-fluid model equations that average over small scale inhomogeneities that we do not wish to resolve in numerical simulations. We then outline a procedure to extract constitutive models for these filtered two-fluid models through highly resolved simulations of the kinetic theory based model equations in periodic domains. Two-and three-dimensional simulations show that the closure relations for the filtered two-fluid models manifest a definite and systematic dependence on the filter size. Linear stability analysis of the filtered two-fluid model equations reveals that filtering does indeed remove small scale structures that are afforded by the microscopic twofluid model.

We investigate the rheology of granular materials via molecular dynamics simulations of homogeneous, simple shear flows of soft, frictional, noncohesive spheres. In agreement with previous results for frictionless particles, we observe three flow regimes existing in different domains of particle volume fraction and shear rate, with all stress data collapsing upon scaling by powers of the distance to the jamming point. Though this jamming point is a function of the interparticle friction coefficient, the relation between pressure and strain rate at this point is found to be independent of friction. We also propose a rheological model that blends the asymptotic relations in each regime to obtain a general description for these flows. Finally, we show that departure from inertial number scalings is a direct result of particle softness, with a dimensionless shear rate characterizing the transition.

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A constitutive model is developed for the complex rheology of rate-independent granular materials. The closures for the pressure and the macroscopic friction coefficient are linked to microstructure through evolution equations for coordination number and fabric. The material constants in the model are functions of particle-level properties and are calibrated using data generated through simulations of steady and unsteady simple shear using the discrete element method (DEM). This model is verified against DEM simulations at complex loading conditions.