New forcing scheme to sustain particle-laden homogeneous and isotropic turbulence

This paper evaluates the effect of forcing to sustain turbulence on the transfer function of the fluid with particles suspended in a homogeneous and isotropic flow. As mentioned by Lucci et al. [“Modulation of isotropic turbulence by particles of Taylor length-scale size,” J. Fluid Mech.650, 5–55 (2010)10.1017/S0022112009994022], there are three limitations of forcing particle-laden homogeneous and isotropic turbulence: (a) large fluctuations on the temporal evolution of the kinetic energy are created when forcing is active at low wavenumbers, (b) the redistribution of energy is affected when forcing is performed over all wavenumbers, and (c) the nonlinear transfer function of the fluid due to the triadic interactions is affected when forcing is active over a wavenumber range. These limitations make the interpretation of the effects of particles on the energy spectrum of the fluid difficult. A new forcing scheme in physical space has been designed which avoids these limitations in wavenumber space, so the spectral effects of particles can be evaluated. The performance of this forcing scheme is tested using Direct Numerical Simulations. It is shown that the nonlinear transfer function of the fluid with the current forcing scheme is only affected at the wavenumbers it is acting, consistent with the theory. Even so, the spatial coherence and phase spectra between the two-way coupling and the fluid computed from the simulations show that the new forcing scheme is only moderately correlated even for the forced wavenumbers, with correlation coefficient typically about 10%.