Numerical Simulation for Hydrodynamic Analysis and Pressure Drop Prediction in Horizontal Gas-Solid Flows

Abstract

Two fluid or Eulerian modeling incorporating the kinetic theory for granular particles and accounting for four-way coupling was performed to investigate the hydrodynamics and pressure drop characteristics of gas-solid flows in horizontal pipes. The model was validated by comparison with the experimental data found in literature and the predictions agreed reasonably well with experimental results. It was found that lift force along with particle-wall collision and specularity coefficient play significant role in the simulation of horizontal gas-solid flows. Granular temperature model by Ding and Gidaspow (1990) predicts the velocity profiles of both phases accurately. The gas-solid two-phase flow in the horizontal pipe generally has an asymmetric structure in the vertical direction, which is due to the effect of gravity. An extensive investigation was also done to study the effect of various flow parameters like particle properties, gas velocity, and solid concentration on pressure drop prediction. Finally a simplified correlation was proposed for fully developed pressure drop in horizontal gas-solid flows. Unlike the existing correlations, this correlation is valid for a wide range of particle size, pipe diameter, and mass loading.