Turbulence modification in the vicinity of a solid particle

The turbulent transport of material particles is a very general phenomenon, occuring in many natural (dust storms, pollutants in the atmosphere, plankton in the ocean, …) and industrial (fluidized beds, chemical reactors, …) systems. The dynamics of particles suspended in a turbulent flow depends on their size and on their mass density. Very small neutrally buoyant particles behave as passive tracers, co-moving with the fluid, whereas inertial and finite-size effects are expected to occur for larger objects which are buoyant or denser than the fluid. The dynamics of very small heavy particles has been studied by modeling the hydrodynamic forces acting on them as the sum of a (possibly corrected) Stokes drag, added mass, and other forces; in this way it has been possible to simulate the dynamics of millions of particles (see e.g. [1]).