Implementation and verification of a Quasi-Eulerian-Eulerian-IATE model for the high-efficient prediction of polydispersed bubbly flows in a continuous casting mold

Abstract

We implement a new gas–liquid two phase model for the high-efficient prediction of polydispersed bubbly flows in a continuous casting mold. This model shares similarity with the Euler–Lagrange (E-L) method, in which the gas velocity is updated by bubble Lagrangian tracking, and with coupling the phase transport equation in Euler-Euler (E-E) method, thus, it is called the Quasi-Eulerian-Eulerian-IATE (Q-E-E-IATE) model. The local mean bubble size is obtained from solving the interfacial area transport equation (IATE). Various interfacial forces including drag force, lift force, virtual mass force, and turbulent dispersion force are incorporated in this model. This model is verified against published experimental data. Good agreement of gas volume fraction, flow field and bubble size distribution are obtained by adding the virtual mass force and adopting optimized IATE constants. The computational cost of the Q-E-E-IATE model is much lower compared to that of the traditional E-L and E-E models.