The importance of the forces acting on particles in turbulent flows

The analysis of the importance of the forces that act over an ensemble of particles in a turbulent field has been carried out by using direct numerical simulation for a wide range of density ratios (2.65<ρ<2650). It has been observed that, compared to the Stokes drag, the added mass is always negligible, the pressure drag is relevant for density ratios O(1), and the Basset force is appreciable for the whole range investigated. However, the effect of these forces on the particle dispersion is about 1% for ρ∼1 as well as for large density ratios.