Numerical investigation of solid-liquid slurry flow through an upward-facing step

Abstract

Abstract:The flow of a solid-water mixture through an upward-facing step in a channel is numerically investigated. The effect of expansion ratio, mean solids volume fraction and particle diameter on the velocity field, pressure distribution and solid volume fraction field is studied. Expansion ratios of 0.50 and 0.67, particle diameter of 125 µm and 440 µm and mean solid volume fraction between 0.05 and 0.20 are considered. Particle density is 2465 kg m -3 . An Eulerian twofluid model is used to simulate the flow. Due to the lack of experimental data, the model was validated by comparison to other numerical investigations and to experimental data about the horizontal pipe case. Afterwards, it is studied the effect of the above mentioned parameters upon the degree of coupling between the phases and the extension of the disturbance region in the pressure and solid volume fraction fields downstream the step. Parameters of engineering interest, such as the reattachment length and the pressure recovery downstream the enlargement, are investigated.

Validation of friction factor predictions in vertical slurry flows with coarse particles

“…The mathematical modelling of solid-liquid flow with coarse particles is still a long way from the knowledge gathered for single-phase flows (Bartosik and Shook, 1995;Messa and Malavasi, 2013;Miedema, 2015). The mathematical models, which are available in the literature, are usually not validated for industrial applications, which include a broad range of solid concentrations.…”

Numerical Analysis of Convective Transport of Fly Ash-Water Slurry through a Horizontal Pipe

“…They also performed experiments using narrow sized silica sand with diameter of 450 mm to compare the modeling results. Messa and Malavasi [20] numerically investigated the flow of solid-water slurry through an upward-facing step in a channel by using Eulerian two phase model. They studied the effect of expansion ratio, volume fraction and particle diameter on the velocity field, pressure distribution.…”