A large-scale simulation of aerosol nucleation and growth in a turbulent mixing layer is performed and analyzed with the aim of elucidating the key processes involved. A cold gaseous stream is mixed with a hot stream of vapor, nanometer sized droplets nucleate as the vapor becomes supersaturated, and subsequently grow as more vapor condenses on their surface. All length and time scales of fluid motion and mixing are resolved and the quadrature method of moments is used to describe the dynamics of the condensing, non-inertial droplets. The results show that a region of high nucleation rate is located near the cold, dry stream, while particles undergo intense growth via condensation on the hot, humid vapor side. Supersaturation and residence times are such that number densities are low and neither coagulation nor vapor scavenging due to condensation are significant. The difference in Schmidt numbers of aerosol particles (approximated as infinity) and temperature and vapor (near unity) causes a drift of the aerosol particles in scalar space and contributes to a large scatter in the conditional statistics of aerosol quantities. The spatial distribution of the aerosol reveals high volume fraction on the hot side of the mixing layer. This distribution is due to drift against the mean and is related to turbulent mixing, which displaces particles from the nucleation region (cold side) into the growth region (hot side). Such a mechanism is absent in laminar flows and is a distinct feature of turbulent condensing aerosols.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
June 2014
Research Article|
June 25 2014
Simulation of aerosol nucleation and growth in a turbulent mixing layer
Kun Zhou;
Kun Zhou
a)
Clean Combustion Research Center,
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
, Thuwal 23955, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Search for other works by this author on:
Antonio Attili;
Antonio Attili
Clean Combustion Research Center,
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
, Thuwal 23955, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Search for other works by this author on:
Amjad Alshaarawi;
Amjad Alshaarawi
Clean Combustion Research Center,
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
, Thuwal 23955, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Search for other works by this author on:
Fabrizio Bisetti
Fabrizio Bisetti
Clean Combustion Research Center,
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
, Thuwal 23955, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Search for other works by this author on:
a)
Electronic mail: [email protected]
Physics of Fluids 26, 065106 (2014)
Article history
Received:
November 05 2013
Accepted:
June 10 2014
Citation
Kun Zhou, Antonio Attili, Amjad Alshaarawi, Fabrizio Bisetti; Simulation of aerosol nucleation and growth in a turbulent mixing layer. Physics of Fluids 1 June 2014; 26 (6): 065106. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4884789
Download citation file:
Pay-Per-View Access
$40.00
Sign In
You could not be signed in. Please check your credentials and make sure you have an active account and try again.
Citing articles via
On Oreology, the fracture and flow of “milk's favorite cookie®”
Crystal E. Owens, Max R. Fan (范瑞), et al.
Physics-informed neural networks for solving Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations
Hamidreza Eivazi, Mojtaba Tahani, et al.
Chinese Academy of Science Journal Ranking System (2015–2023)
Cruz Y. Li (李雨桐), 李雨桐, et al.
Related Content
Numerical simulations of the flow and aerosol dispersion in a violent expiratory event: Outcomes of the “2022 International Computational Fluid Dynamics Challenge on violent expiratory events”
Physics of Fluids (April 2023)
Surface area controlled heterogeneous nucleation
J. Chem. Phys. (February 2012)
New approach to the kinetics of heterogeneous unary nucleation on liquid aerosols of a binary solution
J. Chem. Phys. (December 2006)
Laboratory studies on the potential of tropospheric insoluble aerosol components for heterogeneous ice nucleation
AIP Conference Proceedings (August 2000)
Development and characterization of a laminar aerosol flow tube
Rev. Sci. Instrum. (March 2006)