Modeling of turbulent diffusion terms for one-dimensional interfacial area transport equation in vertical round channels

Abstract

The two-fluid model is comprised of the mass, momentum, and energy equations for liquid and gas phases separately. The terms of interfacial transfer govern mass, momentum, and energy transfer across the gas-liquid interface. The interfacial area concentration is critical to formulating the interfacial transfer terms. The one-dimensional Interfacial Area Transport Equation (IATE) has excellent potential in dynamically predicting the interfacial area concentration. The sink and source terms modeling for the interfacial area concentration is vital in the successful IATE development. The current IATE in bubbly flows considers the sink terms caused by bubble coalescence owing to random bubble collision and wake entrainment. The source term is caused by bubble breakup owing to turbulent impact. The turbulent diffusion term has not been considered in the current practice of one-dimensional IATE. This study developed the equation to predict the turbulent diffusion terms in the one-dimensional IATE for bubbly flow in vertical round channels. The predictive capability of the developed equation was validated with the collected database. The non-dimensionalized turbulent diffusion terms predicted by the developed equation agreed with those directly calculated by the experimental data. The developed turbulent diffusion term was also implemented in the one-dimensional IATE. The interfacial area concentrations predicted by the one-dimensional IATE with the turbulent diffusion term had a satisfactory agreement with the experimental results by the statistical parameters of the mean relative deviation of 3.76% and the mean absolute relative deviation of 10.1%.