Influence of scale on the hydrodynamics of bubble columns operating in the churn-turbulent regime: experiments vs. Eulerian simulations

Abstract

The radial distribution of the liquid velocities, along with the liquid-phase axial dispersion coefficients, have been measured for the air–water system in bubble columns of 0.174, 0.38 and 0.63 m diameter. The experimental results emphasise the significant influence of the column diameter on the hydrodynamics, especially in the churn-turbulent regime. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used to model the influence of column diameter on the hydrodynamics. The bubble column is considered to be made up of three phases: (1) liquid, (2) “small” bubbles and (3) “large” bubbles and the Eulerian description is used for each of these phases. Interactions between the gas phases and the liquid are taken into account in terms of momentum exchange, or drag, coefficients, which differ for these two gas phases. The drag coefficient between the small bubbles is estimated using the Harmathy correlation ( A.I.Ch.E. Journal 6 (1960) 281–288). The drag relation for interactions between the large bubbles and the liquid, is developed from analysis of an extensive data base on large bubble swarm velocities measured in columns of 0.051, 0.1, 0.174, 0.19, 0.38 and 0.63 m diameter using a variety of liquids (water, paraffin oil, tetradecane). The interactions between the large and small bubble phases are ignored. The turbulence in the liquid phase is described using the k– ε model. The three-phase description of bubble columns was implemented within the Eulerian framework of a commercial code CFX 4.1c of AEA Technology, Harwell, UK. Comparison of the experimental measurements with the Eulerian simulations show good agreement and it is concluded that the three-phase Eulerian simulation approach developed here could be a powerful design and scale-up tool.