Acceleration statistics of inertial particles in turbulent flow

Turbulent transport of material inclusions plays an important role in many natural and industrial situations. Being able to accurately model and predict the dynamics of dispersed particles transported by a turbulent carrier flow, remains a challenge. One critical and difficult point is to develop models which correctly describe the dynamics of particles over a wide range of sizes and densities. Our measurements show that acceleration statistics of particles dispersed in a turbulent flow do exhibit specific, and so far unpredicted, size and density effects and that they preserve an extremely robust turbulent signature with lognormal fluctuations, regardless of particles size and density. This has important consequences in terms of modeling for the turbulent transport of dispersed inclusions.