Thermal behaviour of settling heavy inertial particles in turbulent natural convection

Abstract

We investigate the dynamical and thermal behaviour of settling heavy inertial particles in bulk turbulent thermal convection. Direct numerical simulations are performed in a homogeneous Rayleigh-Benard convection setup, where a uniform mean temperature gradient drives statistically homogeneous convective turbulence seeded with passive inertial particles. We quantify the effects of dynamic and thermal inertia on particle statistics. In particular, we investigate how the fluctuations of particle velocity and temperature can be traced back to the correlations between particle and fluid variables, and how particle temperature statistics is affected by the interplay of settling and preferential concentration.