Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation Of Gas Research Articles

Computational Fluid Dynamics–Population Balance Modeling of Gas–Liquid Two-Phase Flow in Bubble Column Reactors With an Improved Breakup Kernel Accounting for Bubble Shape Variations

Traditionally, bubble shapes have been assumed to be spherical in breakup models such as the one developed by Luo and Svendsen in 1996. This particular breakup model has been widely accepted and implemented into computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling of gas–liquid two-phase flows. However, simulation results from this model usually provide unreliable predictions about the breakage of very small bubbles. The incorporation of bubble shape variation into breakup models has rarely been documented in literature but the bubble shape plays an important role in the interactions with the surrounding eddies, especially when the effects of bubble deformation, distortion, and bubble internal pressure change are considered during the events of eddy-bubble collision. Thus, the assumption of spherical bubbles seems to be no longer appropriate in reflecting this phenomenon. This study proposes and implements a modified bubble breakup model, which accounts for the variation of bubble shapes when solving the population balance equations for CFD simulation of gas–liquid two-phase flows in bubble columns. The key parameters predicted by the modified breakup model have been compared with the ones predicted by the original model. The simulation results of interfacial area and mass transfer coefficient for larger bubbles have been greatly enhanced by the modified breakup model.

CFD simulation of gas and particle flow and a carbon capture process using a circulating fluidized bed (CFB) reacting loop

Circulating fluidized bed (CFB) loop-based reactors are widely used in the chemical and energy industries. CFB reactors are excellent candidates for chemical looping of solid sorbents for CO2 capture and sorbent regeneration processes because they ensure a continuous carbon dioxide removal process in a relatively compact unit. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) provides an excellent approach to model the carbonator and regenerator reactors and the entire CFB loop design in a systematic and computationally feasible way. The simulation of individual parts of the system was recently performed and provided a qualitative estimation of the system behavior. In order to use CFD to perform simulations of the CO2 capture regenerative process, a model based on the multiphase flow equations taking into account the sorption/regeneration is needed. Therefore, in this work, a CFD approach was developed and applied to simulate gas and solid flows and CO2 sorption and regeneration in the entire CFB loop. The CFB's geometry used in this study is the same as National Energy Technology Laboratory‘s experimental setup.Our calculations showed that the CFB hydrodynamic behavior reached to a statistical steady state after about 10 s in a three-dimensional domain. The time to reach statistical steady state strongly depends on the initial condition of the simulations, and the geometry and the size of the system. Three-dimensional CFD simulations demand significantly high computational time; thus, we used only the three-dimensional domain for understanding the hydrodynamics of the system and to verify the dynamics of the same system in a two-dimensional CFD domain (no reaction was included in the three-dimensional domain). The two-dimensional domain requires considerably less computational time and allowed us to ultimately add two heterogeneous reactions to the circulating fluidized bed's CFD simulation for carbonation and regeneration of MgO-based solid sorbents. The results of our simulation showed the excellent capability of our CFD approach in describing the CO2 conversion profiles and flow behavior in a reacting CFB system that includes the entire range of solid volume fraction from very dilute (i.e., riser) to very dense (i.e., standpipe) ranges. The effect of CO2 sorption and regeneration at elevated temperature and pressure was also studied.

CFD simulation of gas and non-Newtonian fluid two-phase flow in anaerobic digesters

This paper presents an Eulerian multiphase flow model that characterizes gas mixing in anaerobic digesters. In the model development, liquid manure is assumed to be water or a non-Newtonian fluid that is dependent on total solids (TS) concentration. To establish the appropriate models for different TS levels, twelve turbulence models are evaluated by comparing the frictional pressure drops of gas and non-Newtonian fluid two-phase flow in a horizontal pipe obtained from computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with those from a correlation analysis. The commercial CFD software, Fluent12.0, is employed to simulate the multiphase flow in the digesters. The simulation results in a small-sized digester are validated against the experimental data from literature. Comparison of two gas mixing designs in a medium-sized digester demonstrates that mixing intensity is insensitive to the TS in confined gas mixing, whereas there are significant decreases with increases of TS in unconfined gas mixing. Moreover, comparison of three mixing methods indicates that gas mixing is more efficient than mixing by pumped circulation while it is less efficient than mechanical mixing.

Influence of Boundary Conditions on CFD Simulation of Gas- particle Hydrodynamics in a Conical Fluidized Bed Unit

The hydrodynamics of gas-particle conical fluidized bed containing dried TiO2 micro-size particles were studied experimentally and computationally. The pressure drop was studied by pressure measurements and mean solid velocity in the different axial and radial positions and their experimental values were measured by a parallel 3-fiber optical probe. The Eulerian-Eulerian multiphase model, including kinetic theory of granular flow using Gidaspow (1994) drag function was used in the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. The frictional viscosity of solids is predicted from the equation proposed by Schaeffer (1987), whereas semi-empirical boundary equations developed by Johnson and Jackson (1987) were applied for the tangential velocity and granular temperature of the solids at the wall. Three different types of boundary conditions (BC), consisting in free-slip/no-friction, no-slip/friction and high-slip/small-friction, were used in this work to compare the results of the model with the experimental data. The numerical predictions using free-slip/no-friction BC agreed reasonably well with the experimental pressure drop measurements, especially at superficial gas velocities higher than the minimum fluidization velocity, Umf. The results for simulated mean axial solid velocity show that the free-slip BC was in better agreement with the experimental data compared with the other boundary conditions. The model also provides reasonable predictions for particle circulation and formation of fountain zone, gulf-effect and air velocity.