Effect of electric charge on dispersion and spatial distribution in particleladen turbulent flows

Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse (IMFT), Université de Toulouse, Toulouse-INP ENSEEIHT, CNRS, Toulouse, France

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Published online: 1 December 2025

Abstract

The effect of electric charges carried by particles in homogeneous isotropic turbulent flow is analysed. Direct Numerical Simulations have been coupled with the Lagrangian tracking of particles and a specific algorithm accounting for the inter-particle electrostatic force of particle having the same electric charge. In the first configuration where the gravity is neglected, the effect of the electric field on the spatial distribution of particles is shown. According to the level of the charges, the radial distribution function of pair particles exhibits an exclusion zone in which the probability to have a second particle is null. In that case, a competition exists between the repulsive electrostatic forces and the particle-turbulence interactions which may lead the particles to preferentially concentrate. When the gravity is accounted for, the fluctuating motion of the particles in the direction of the gravity and in the normal direction normal are different. Similarly to the inter-particle collisions, the electrostatic forces lead to the isotropization of the particle motion which can be modelled in the framework of the kinetic theory.