Direct Numerical Simulation of particulate flow with heat transfer

Abstract

Numerical simulations of heat transfer in non-isothermal particulate flows are important to better understand the flow pattern. The complexity of numerical algorithms coupling the heat and mass transfer and the considerable computational resources required limit the number of such direct simulations that can be reasonably performed. We suggest a Distributed Lagrange Multiplier/Fictitious Domain (DLM/FD) method to compute the temperature distribution and the heat exchange between the fluid and solid phases. The Boussinesq approximation is considered for the flow/temperature fields coupling. We employ a Finite Element Method (FEM) to solve the fluid flow conservation equations for mass, momentum and energy. The motion of particles is computed by a Discrete Element Method (DEM). On each particle, heat transfer is solved using a FEM. For each class of particles, we generate a single FEM grid and translate/rotate it at each time step to match the physical configuration of each particle. Distributed Lagrange multipliers for both the velocity and temperature fields are introduced to treat the fluid/solid interaction. This work is an extension of the method we proposed in Yu et al. (2006). Two two-dimensional (2D) test cases are proposed to validate the implementation by comparing our computational results with those reported in the literature. Finally, the sedimentation of a single sphere in a semi-infinite channel is presented and the results are discussed.