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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
In probability density function (PDF) methods of turbulent flows, the joint PDF of several flow variables is computed by numerically integrating a system of stochastic differential equations for Lagrangian particles. Because the technique solves a transport equation for the PDF of the velocity, a mathematically exact treatment of advection, viscous effects and arbitrarily complex chemical reactions is possible; these processes are treated without closure assumptions.
A particle-in-cell solver has been developed to provide an efficient solution in geometrically complex configurations. The flow itself is represented by particles and an Eulerian grid is employed to extract statistics, to solve for quantities represented at fixed locations of the domain and to track particles.
I will describe the fundamentals of the method, the main points of the numerical implementation, and will show results of simulations for different cases, along with comparisons with experiments and with other more traditional numerical techniques. Finally, I will discuss the advantages, limitations, and perspectives of the method.
Host: Misha Shashkov, T-07