Study on bubble-induced turbulence in pipes and containers with Reynolds-stress models

Bubbly flow still represents a challenge for large-scale numerical simulation. Among many others the understanding and modelling of bubble-induced turbulence (BIT) are far from being satisfactory even though continuous efforts have been made. In particular, the buoyancy of the bubbles generally introduces turbulence anisotropy in the flow, which can not be captured by the standard eddy viscosity models with specific source terms representing BIT. Recently, on the basis of bubble-resolving Direct Numerical Simulations data, a new Reynolds-stress model considering BIT were developed by Ma et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 883, 2020, A9) within the Euler–Euler framework. The objective of the present work is to assess this model and compare its performance with other standard Reynolds-stress models using a systematic test strategy. We select the experimental data in the BIT dominated range and find that the new model leads to major improvements in the prediction of full Reynolds-stress components.