To investigate the behaviour of inter-particle collision and its effects on particle dispersion, direct numerical simulation of a three-dimensional two-phase turbulent jet was conducted. The finite volume method and the fractional-step projection algorithm were used to solve the governing equations of the gas phase fluid and the Lagrangian method was applied to trace the particles. The deterministic hard-sphere model was used to describe the inter-particle collision. In order to allow an analysis of inter-particle collisions independent of the effect of particles on the flow, two-way coupling was neglected. The inter-particle collision occurs frequently in the local regions with higher particle concentration of the flow field. Under the influence of the local accumulation and the turbulent transport effects, the variation of the average inter-particle collision number with the Stokes number takes on a complex non-linear relationship. The particle distribution is more uniform as a result of inter-particle collisions, and the lateral and the spanwise dispersion of the particles considering inter-particle collision also increase. Furthermore, for the case of particles with the Rosin-Rammler distribution (the medial particle size is set d(50) = 36.7 pm), the collision number is significantly larger than that of the particles at the Stokes number of 10, and their effects on calculated results are also more significant. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.