Electrically driven relaminarisation of particle-laden turbulent channel flow

Electrical effects are known to play an important role in particle-laden flows, yet a holistic view of how they modulate turbulence remains elusive due to the complexity of multifield coupling. Here, we present a total of 119 direct numerical simulations of particle-laden turbulent channel flow that reveal a striking ability of electrical effects to induce turbulence relaminarisation and markedly alter wall drag. As expected, the transition from turbulence to laminar flow is accompanied by abrupt changes in the statistical properties of both the fluid and particulate phases. Nevertheless, with increasing electrical effects, the wall-normal profiles of the mean streamwise fluid velocity and mean local particle mass loading exhibit opposite trends in the turbulent and laminar regimes, arising from the competition between turbophoresis and electrostatic drift. We identify three distinct flow regimes resulting from the electrical effects: a drag-reduced turbulent regime, a drag-reduced laminar regime, and a drag-enhanced laminar regime. It is revealed that relaminarization originates from the complete suppression of the streak breakdown in the near-wall self-sustaining cycle, followed by the sequential inhibition of other subprocesses in the cycle. In the turbulent regime, increasing electrical effects induce opposing trends in Reynolds and particle stress contributions to drag, yielding a non-monotonic drag response. In laminar regimes, by contrast, the drag coefficient increases monotonically as the Reynolds stress vanishes and particle-induced stress becomes dominant.