(297g) A Quadrature-Based Moment Method for Simulation of Bubble Columns

A novel conditional quadrature-based moment method (Yuan and Fox, 2010) for the kinetic equation describing the gas-phase in bubble columns was coupled with an incompressible finite-volume fluid solver for the liquid phase and applied to the simulation of bubble columns. The forces acting on the bubbles due to gravity, drag, lift, buoyancy and virtual mass effect are considered. Closures for the terms in the moment transport equations due to the momentum exchange terms are derived. The procedure to couple the phases accounting for the volume fraction effects and the momentum exchange between the bubbles and the liquid is explained in detail. Results for the simulation of a bubble column under the homogeneous regime are compared to the predictions of the Euler-Euler two-fluid model (Monahan, 2007), Euler-Lagrangian model (Darmana, 2006) and experimental data (Harteveld, 2005).

Reference

Darmana D. 2006 On the multiscale modeling of hydrodynamics, mass transfer and chemical reactions in bubble columns. Ph.D. dissertation, Universiteit Twente, the Netherlands.

Harteveld W. 2005 Bubble Columns: Structures or Stability? Ph.D. dissertation, Delft Univ. of Technology, The Netherlands.

Monahan S. M. 2007 Computational fluid dynamics analysis of air-water bubble columns. Ph.D. dissertation, Iowa State University, USA.

Yuan, C., Fox, R. O. 2010 Conditional quadrature method of moments for kinetic equations. Journal of Computational Physics (in review).