SPH Simulation of the Rising of a Kerosene Bubble in a Water Column: Effect of the Injection Condition

Abstract

Abstract In this work, the numerical simulation of bubbles of kerosene in a column with water is performed by using the Smoothed Particles Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. The SPH method allows a good representation and monitoring of the interface between two or more miscible or immiscible fluids, advantage that can be used to study the hydrodynamic of bubbles in an immiscible environment). In this study, the contribution of the surface tension and wetting model in a biphasic flow of bubbles of kerosene along a column filled with water is analysed. The simulations are performed using a modify version of the free access code DualSPHyics. The validation is performed by coding the case of an ascending bubble and comparing the numerical results with the data reported in the literature. Several 2D simulations of kerosene injection in a column with water for three different flow rates, contact angles and injector diameters are performed, bearing a total of 27 cases of study. The center of mass and rise velocity in the validation case have good agreement with the data reported the literature. In the cases of injection, it has been determined that the length of injection is the principal parameter affecting the size of the bubbles. In conclusion, the SPH method can properly and naturally represent the creation of the bubbles due to its purely Lagrangian description. The surface tension model allows a stable surface drop during the rise of the bubble; moreover, with this model it is possible to study the rise of drops for different regimes.