Many particle-laden flows in engineering applications involve turbulent gas flows. Modeling multiphase turbulent flows is an important research topic with applications in fluidized beds and particle conveying. A predictive multiphase turbulence model can help CFD codes to be more useful for engineering applications, such as the scale-up in the design of circulating fluidized combustor and coal gasifications. In engineering applications, the particle volume fraction can vary from dilute (<10(sup -4)) to dense ((approx) 50%). It is reasonable to expect that multiphase turbulence models should at least satisfy some basic modeling and performance criteria and give reasonable predictions for the canonical problems in dilute particle-laden turbulent flows. In this research, a comparative assessment of predictions from Simonin and Ahmadi's turbulence models is performed with direct numerical simulation (DNS) for two canonical problems in particle-laden turbulent flows. Based on the comparative assessment, some criteria and the areas for model improvement are identified: (1) model for interphase TKE transfer, especially the time scale of interphase TKE transfer, and (2) correct prediction of TKE evolution with variation of particle Stokes number. Some deficiencies that are identified in the Simonin and Ahmadi models, limit the applicability. A new multiphase turbulence model, the Equilibration of Energy Model (EEM), is proposed in this work. In EEM, a multiscale interaction time scale is proposed to account for the interaction of a particle with a range of eddy sizes. EEM shows good agreement with the DNS results for particle-laden isotropic turbulence. For particle-laden homogeneous shear flows, model predictions from EEM can be further improved if the dissipation rate in fluid phase is modeled with more accuracy.
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