Numerical investigation on the expansion of supercritical carbon dioxide jet

Abstract

Supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) fluid is characterized by low rock breaking threshold pressure and high rock breaking rate. Meanwhile, SC-CO2 fluid has relatively low viscosity near to gas and high density near to liquid. So, it has great advantages in drilling and rock breaking over water. In this paper, numerical study of SC-CO2 flowing through a nozzle is presented. The purpose of this simulation is to ascertain why the SC-CO2 jet flow has better ability in drilling and rock breaking than the water jet flow. The simulation model was controlled by the RANS equations together with the continuity equation as well as the energy equation. The realizable k-epsilon turbulence model was adopted to govern the turbulent characteristics. Pressure boundary conditions were applied to the inlet and outlet boundary. The properties of carbon dioxide and water were described by UDF. It is found that: (1) under the same boundary conditions, the decay of dimensionless central axial velocity and dynamic pressure of water is quicker than that of the SC-CO2, and the core length of SC-CO2 jet is about 4.5 times of the nozzle diameter, which is 1 times longer than that of the water; (2) With the increase of inlet pressure or the decrease of outlet pressure, the dimensionless central axial velocity and dynamic pressure attenuation of water keeps the same, while the decay of central axial velocity of SC-CO2 turns gentle; (3) the change of central axial temperature of SC-CO2 is more complex than that of the water.