Direct numerical simulations (DNS) of bubble-laden isotropic decaying turbulence are performed using the two-fluid approach (TF) instead of the Eulerian–Lagrangian approach (EL). The motivation for the study is that EL requires considerable computational resources, especially for the case of two-way coupling, where the instantaneous trajectories of a large number of individual bubbles need to be computed. The TF formulation is developed by spatially averaging the instantaneous equations of the carrier flow and bubble phase over a scale of the order of the Kolmogorov length scale, which, in our case, is much larger than the bubble diameter. On that scale, the bubbles are treated as a continuum (without molecular diffusivity) characterized by the bubble phase velocity field and concentration (volume fraction). The bubble concentration,C, is assumed small enough(C⩽10−3)to neglect the bubble–bubble interactions. As a test case, direct simulation of a bubble-laden Taylor–Green vortex with one-way coupling is performed with a bubble response time of the order of the flow time scale (inverse of the mean vorticity). This simple flow allows a direct examination of the effects of the preferential accumulation of bubbles in the high-enstrophy regions of the flow on the accuracy of the two-fluid formulation. The temporal development of the maximum bubble concentration obtained from DNS agrees well with the analytical solution. DNS of the bubble-laden decaying turbulence are also performed for both cases of one-way and two-way coupling. Here, the bubble diameter and response time are much smaller than the Kolmogorov length and time scales, respectively. In this case, as expected, the effects of the preferential accumulation of the bubbles are not pronounced. The results also show that the bubble-laden flow is analogous to a stratified flow with an effective density=(1−C)&rgr;f.Thus, due to the two-way interaction between the bubbles and carrier flow, the turbulence decay is enhanced with stable stratification, and reduced with unstable stratification.©1998 American Institute of Physics.