Abstract
This work presents a computational simulation of a single Taylor bubble rising in a vertical column of stagnant liquid. The computational simulation was based on the Navier-Stokes equations for isothermal, incompressible, and laminar flow, solved by using the open source software OpenFOAM. The two fluids were assumed immiscible. The governing equations were discretized by the volume-of-fluid (VOF) method and solved using the Gauss iteration method. Parametric mesh was used in order to improve the modeling of curvilinear geometry. Numerical solutions were obtained for the rise velocities and shapes of the bubbles which are in excellent agreement with experimental data and correlations from literature.
Highlights
As a common gas-liquid two-phase flow pattern, slug flow is encountered in a variety of industrial applications, such as nuclear reactor cooling systems, evaporators, boilers, condensers, among others
The numerical results were compared with correlations from literature and experimental data previously obtained from a vertical column consisting of acrylic tubes with 2.0 m in length and inner diameter of 0.024 m sealed at the ends
The rise velocities and shapes of the bubbles were determined by using a pulse-echo ultrasonic technique, with uncertainties estimated in 2% for Ub and between 100μm and 280μm for δ on the experimental bubble shapes, respectively [10]
Summary
As a common gas-liquid two-phase flow pattern, slug flow is encountered in a variety of industrial applications, such as nuclear reactor cooling systems, evaporators, boilers, condensers, among others. Dumitrescu performed the first relevant study concerning individual bubbles rising in stagnant liquids and derived a Taylor bubble profile for air-water systems from potential flow theory, with a correlation to estimate the bubble velocity U0 [1]. From the reconstructed surface, the motion of the face-interface intersection line was modeled for a general polygonal face in order to obtain the time evolution within a time step of the submerged face area Integrating this submerged area over the time step leads to an accurate estimate for the total volume of fluid transported across the face. Computational simulation of the motion of a single Taylor bubble in a vertical column with stagnant liquid was performed in the open source software Open FOAM using the InterFlow solver and the IsoAdvector method. Numerical results were obtained for the rise velocities and shapes of the Taylor bubbles, which were compared favorably with experimental data [10] and correlations from literature
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