14,262 FUNG' RESIDENCE TIME OF INERTIAL PARTICLES IN A VORTEX

tion for an inertial particle is described. In section4

the simulation method and the results of the simula- _
- 2•rr
I I -exp ---r02 , (2b)
tion of particlemotionin a steadyline vortexand in an
unsteadyspreadingline vortex are presented. wherero- œ(t)/L is a functionof the initial coresize
and viscosity(or vortexReynoldsnumber).The cor-
2. Spreading Line Vortex respondingvelocityfieldin Cartesiancoordinates be-
comes

We considera vortex filamentin an incompressible

fluidin which,initially,the vorticityiszeroeverywhere,
except on the axis of the vortex filament with small core -- Y [1-exp
ux -- -2•-r2 (-r•)], (3a)
sizeœ0and with strengthF at t - O. Physically,
this
_ x /.2
means that for small times, there is a narrow vortex
core near the axis, and the rest of the flow field is irro- uy- 2•rr•.
[1-exp(-r-•)
] . (3b)
tational. Vorticity is here diffusedradiallyawayfrom Note that the center of vortex is chosen to be at the
an initial concentration on a line, and we usecylindri- originand L=/F is the characteristic
turnovertime of
cal coordinatesandtakethe z axisalongthe axisof the the vortex over a characteristiclength scaleL.
filament. Let ur and u0 be the radial and circumfer- In the caseof moderatevortex Reynoldsnumbersthe
ential velocity componentsof the vortex, respectively; vorticity is diffusedradially away from the initial con-
then ur = 0, and the vorticity is governedby centration;hencethe coresizeœ(t)of the vortexwill in-
creasewith time. The velocitydistributionof a spread-
0(
Ot = " •(02(
Or
• +- r•rr ' (la)
ing line vortex with different core sizesat different val-
ues of t are shownin Figure I as a function of r. The
where
most obviousfeature is that as r increases,uo increases
to a certain maximum value and then decreases to zero
• = Or+ --' (lb) as r --• oo. Note that for large valuesof r (>> r0) the
velocity distribution has the same form at all t. The
The boundaryconditionis uo(r -> oo,t > 0) -> 0. The
value r - rm for which the maximum uo can be found
solution[seeBatchelor,1967]of (1)is is given by the solution of

1 + 2p- ep,
• 1-exp-œ2(t
)
wherep - (rm/ro)•'. Notealsothat the maximumve-
whereœ2
(t) - œ•+ 4pt;œ(t)is definedasthe coresizeof locity uo is shiftedaway from the vortex centeras the
the vortex at time t with an initial size of œ0,and • is coresizeof the vortex (r0) increases.
the kinematic viscosityof the fluid. The dimensionless In this paper we considerthe motion of a particlein
quantityF/p is knownas the vortexReynoldsnumber, a vort.ex flowin two cases:(1) a casewith a verylarge
based on the circulation of the vortices. This vortex
ReynoldsnumberwhereF/• >> 1 andœ(t)cantherefore
ReynoldsnumberRev scalesapproximatelyas Rev , be takento be time-independent and (2) a casewith
,, •/2 [Jimdnez
20t•ex et al., 1993;Marcuet al., 1995] , differentmoderatevortex Reynoldsnumbersarrivedat
where Rex is the Reynolds number formed with the
Taylor microscale. Note that near r = 0 the motion is
a rigid body rotation. The streamlinesare circles,and I f I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

far away from the vortex, the velocity field decaysas 1 .oo
1/r. The intensityof the vortex decreases
with time as
the core spreadsradially outward. 0.1
In the limit of large vortex Reynoldsnumbers,where 0.75

F/v >> 1, advectionaroundthe vortex is so fast that

a fluid element may complete many turns around the
vortexbeforeœ(t)changesappreciably.In this paperwe
considerfirst the casewhereF/• >> 1 and cantherefore
B
take a referencelengthL to be a time-independentchar-
acteristiclengthscaleof the vortexflow [seeTing and
Klein, 1991]and F/L to be the characteristicvelocity.
The nondimensional flow field has the form
o.oo
o.o 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
ur -- O, (2a)

Figure 1. The velocity distribution associatedwith a

1 1- exp- œ2(t)/L2
27rr
spreadingline vortex of different coresizes. The number
indicates the core size of the vortex.