Computational fluid simulation of non-Newtonian two-phase fluid flow through a channel with a cavity

Abstract

In this paper, the numerical solution of non-Newtonian two-phase fluid-flow through a channel with a cavity was studied. Carreau-Yasuda non-Newtonian model which represents well the dependence of stress on shear rate was used and the effect of n index of the model and the effect of input Reynolds on the attribution of flow were considered. Governing equations were discretized using the finite volume method on staggered grid and the form of allocating flow parameters on staggered grid is based on marker and cell method. The QUICK scheme is employed for the convection terms in the momentum equations, also the convection term is discretized by using the hybrid upwind-central scheme. In order to increase the accuracy of making discrete, second order Van Leer accuracy method was used. For mixed solution of velocity-pressure field SIMPLEC algorithm was used and for pressure correction equation iteratively line-by-line TDMA solution procedure and the strongly implicit procedure was used. As the results show, by increasing Reynolds number, the time of sweeping the non-Newtonian fluid inside the cavity decreases, the velocity of Newtonian fluid increases and the pressure decreases. In the second section, by increasing n index, the velocity increases and the volume fraction of non-Newtonian fluid after cavity increases and by increasing velocity, the pressure decreases. Also changes in the velocity, pressure and volume fraction of fluids inside the channel and cavity are more sensible to changing the Reynolds number instead of changing n index.