Liouville models of particle-laden flow

Abstract

Langevin (stochastic differential) equations are routinely used to describe particle-laden flows. They predict Gaussian probability density functions (PDFs) of a particle's trajectory and velocity, even though experimentally observed dynamics might be highly non-Gaussian. Our Liouville approach overcomes this dichotomy by replacing the Wiener process in the Langevin models with a (small) set of random variables, whose distributions are tuned to match the observed statistics. This strategy gives rise to an exact (deterministic, first-order, hyperbolic) Liouville equation that describes the evolution of a joint PDF in the augmented phase-space spanned by the random variables and the particle position and velocity. Analytical PDF solutions for canonical models of particle-laden flows serve to establish a relationship between the Langevin and Liouville approaches. Finally, our framework is used to derive a new analytical PDF model for fluidized homogeneous heating systems.