Testing CFD-DEM method with a stochastic drag formulation using particle-resolved direct numerical simulation data as benchmark

Abstract Detailed comparison between particle-resolved direct numerical simulations (PR-DNS) and standard CFD-DEM simulations have concluded that the effective interphase drag force was underestimated by currently available drag correlations. Furthermore, PR-DNS have found that the force exerted on a single particle varies significantly even in statistically homogeneous systems, which was unfortunately not considered in standard CFD-DEM simulations. Therefore, it is interesting to test if CFD-DEM simulation with a stochastic drag formulation (stochastic CFD-DEM method) was able to obtain a better agreement with the data of PR-DNS. In this short communication, stochastic CFD-DEM method was assessed using the PR-DNS data of Tang et al. (2016) and Luo et al. (2016) as benchmark. It was found that although a minor improvement can be achieved, stochastic CFD-DEM method was insufficient to fill the gap between PR-DNS and CFD-DEM simulations. Therefore, effort is still needed to develop a better drag model after extensive studies, where the detailed information of particle configuration may need to be properly used.