A Direct Numerical Simulation of Annular Two-Phase Laminar Flow and Heat Transfer in a Circular Pipe

Abstract

An accurate finite-volume based numerical method is developed for the direct numerical simulation of two-phase flow dynamics and heat transfer in a circular pipe consisting of a liquid slug translating in a non-reacting gas. This method is built on a sharp interface concept and developed on an Eulerian-Cartesian fixed-grid system with a cut-cell scheme and marker points to track the moving interface. The unsteady, axisymmetric Navier-Stokes equations in both liquid and gas phases are solved separately. The mass continuity and momentum flux conditions are explicitly matched at the true surface phase boundary to determine the interface shape and movement. A quadratic curve fitting algorithm with marker points is used to yield smooth and accurate information of the interface curvatures. Two-phase flow and heat transfer characteristics are predicted for air-water flows under low and high Weber numbers to evaluate the heat transfer enhancement levels due to the moving liquid slug and the effects of surface tension force. The method reported in this paper offers, for the first time, a new capability of simulating two-phase gas-liquid flow dynamics and heat transfer directly without any modeling. This numerical simulation involves liquid phase deformation, moving interface boundary, curvature variations due to surface tension, property jumps, and heat transfer at the interface.