Modeling of turbulent, neutrally buoyant droplet suspensions in liquids

The mixing of neutrally buoyant, immiscible droplets in suspension in a turbulent liquid is being studied. In a statistically homogeneous field, it is anticipated that the droplets will affect the turbulent eddies, and that the turbulence will cause the droplets to break-up and coalesce. A cascade model is constructed by extension of the Desnyansky and Novikov equation, accounting for the wavenumber dependence of the fluctuating energy, for the intermittency factor of the turbulence and for the droplet population. In the absence of breakage and coalescence, interactions between eddies and droplets are assumed to be of collision type, so that the exchange of energy and the modifications to the eddy and droplet populations can be described. The resulting equations are solved for a fixed droplet population, showing the effect of droplet size on the turbulent energy spectrum. Continuation of the work is discussed, including droplet breakage and coalescence, as well as the introduction of non-homoeeneous distributions.