On the role of the history force for inertial particles in turbulence

Abstract

The history force is one of the hydrodynamic forces which act on a particle moving through a fluid. It is an integral over the full time history of the particle's motion and significantly complicates the equations of motion (accordingly it is often neglected). We present here a study of the influence of this force on particles moving in a turbulent flow, for a wide range of particle parameters. It is shown that the magnitude of history force can be significant and that it can have a considerable effect on the particles' slip velocity, acceleration, preferential concentration and collision rate. We also investigate the parameter dependence of the strength of these effects.