(316ak) Computational Fluid Dynamic Simulation of a Multiphase Fluid in Vertical Flow at High Reynolds Number

The flow of a suspension of spherical particles in air through a vertical rectangular channel with equal inlet and outlet cross sectional areas was simulated under isothermal conditions using Fluent. An Eulerian approach was used in which the multiphase problem is represented as two interpenetrating continua. A granular model was employed for the mixture stress and a realizable “eddy” viscosity model was used for the Reynolds stress.

The purpose of this work was to evaluate the ability of the multiphase model to capture the flow physics associated with catalytic risers. Experimental findings of Ibsen et al. (2001) were used for evaluating the numerical predictions. The numerical predictions were able to capture the axial and span wise particle velocity in some regions of the flow but failed to capture the correct pressure drop. In addition, while the turbulence model provided realizable results for the single-phase flows tested, it became unrealizable when coupled with the multiphase granular model.