Development and Validation of a Continuous Random Walk Model for Particle Tracking in Accelerating Flows

Abstract

Stochastic particle tracking models coupled to RANS fluid simulations are frequently used to simulate particulate transport and hence predict component damage in gas turbines. In simple flows the Continuous Random Walk (CRW) model has been shown to model particulate motion in the diffusion-impaction regime significantly more accurately than Discrete Random Walk implementations. To date, the CRW model has used turbulent flow statistics determined from DNS in channels and experiments in pipes. Robust extension of the CRW model to accelerating flows modelled using RANS is important to enable its use in design studies of rotating engine-realistic geometries of complex curvature. This paper builds on previous work by the authors to use turbulent statistics in the CRW model directly from Reynolds Stress Models (RSM) in RANS simulations. Further improvements are made to this technique to account for strong gradients in Reynolds Stresses in all directions; improve the robustness of the model to the chosen time-step; and to eliminate the need for DNS/experimentally derived statistical flow properties. The effect of these changes were studied using a commercial CFD solver for a simple pipe flow, for which integral deposition prediction accuracy equal to that using the original CRW was achieved. These changes enable the CRW to be applied to more complex flow cases. To demonstrate why this development is important, in a more complex flow case with acceleration, deposition in a turbulent 90° bend was investigated. Critical differences in the predicted deposition are apparent when the results are compared to the alternative tracking models suitable for RANS solutions. The modified CRW model was the only model which captured the more complex deposition distribution, as predicted by published LES studies. Particle tracking models need to be accurate in the spatial distribution of deposition they predict in order to enable more sophisticated engineering design studies.