Simulation of the thermal agent movement hydrodynamics through the stationary layer of the alcohol distillery stillage

Abstract

The computer modeling of the thermal agent flow through a layer of dried corn alcohol distillery stillage of the bulk density 258.2 kg/m3 and porosity 0.74 is employed for the simulation of the viscous and inertial resistance coefficients values via ANSYS Fluent 2022 R2 software. Experimentally determined air flow hydrodynamic parameters were used as a reference. The influence of the layer height step in the range of H = 80 ÷ 120 mm on the correspondence of the obtained modeling data to the experimental results at flow velocities range w0 = 0.83 ÷ 1.86 m/s was investigated. The decreased range of material stationary layer height enhanced the accuracy of held computer modeling. Hereby, simulation standard deviation values relatively to experimental results of the stationary layer hydraulic resistance were determined, for the range of layer heights H = 80 ÷ 120 mm with a step of 10 mm–3.71 %, and for H = 90 ÷ 110 mm with a step of 5 mm–2.72 % respectively.