Comparison of the Eulerian and Lagrangian methods for predicting particle transport in enclosed spaces

The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods has been widely used in modeling particle transport and distribution in enclosed spaces. Generally, the particle models can be classified as either Eulerian or Lagrangian methods while each has its own pros and cons. This investigation is to compare the two modeling methods with an emphasis on their performance of predicting particle concentration distributions in ventilated spaces. Both the Eulerian and Lagrangian models under examination were performed based on the same airflow field calculated by solving the RANS equations with the k-ε turbulence model. The numerical results obtained with the two methods were compared with the experimental data. The comparison shows that both of the methods can well predict the steady-state particle concentration distribution, while the Lagrangian method was computationally more demanding. The two models were further compared in predicting the transient dispersion of the particles from a coughing passenger in a section of airliner cabin. In the unsteady state condition, the Lagrangian method performed better than the Eulerian method.