Contribution of interphase force curl to rigid vorticity transport in water-sand two-phase flow with fine particles

Abstract

Rigid vorticity transport equation is an effective tool for describing the intuitive vortex evolution characteristics. Compared to single-phase flows, the curl of the interphase force appears as a new source term of this equation under the condition of multiphase flows, which may cause additional contributions. However, the effects of the interaction force on rigid vorticity transport in water-sand two-phase flows with fine particles are still unclear. In this article, taking the Karman vortices induced by a hydrofoil as a typical case, the distributions of rigid vorticity in single-phase flows and two-phase flows were compared, and the dynamics mechanism of the dominant interaction force was analyzed. The following notable results are obtained. Firstly, the drag force can be regarded as the dominant interaction force. Secondly, the effect of the drag force on a vortex tube is mainly manifested as inducing normal strain and the contribution is relatively low. Thirdly, there are only slight differences in the waveform, amplitude, frequency of rigid vorticity and apparent vortical structures between the single-phase flows and the fine-particle two-phase flows. These new findings are helpful for understanding the vortex evolution in water-sand two-phase flows with fine particles.