Numerical Aspects of Bubble Column Simulations

Abstract

A numerical study of gas-liquid bubble flow in a square cross section bubble column was carried out. The Euler-Euler approach was used to describe the equations of motion. The effects on the solution of the numerical modeling of the convective terms and of the inlet condition were investigated. Upwind first order and higher order, oscillation free, Flux Corrected Transport (FCT) schemes were tested for both the phase fraction equations and for the momentum equations. Different inlet conditions, constrained on the mass flux inlet, were modeled and tested in order to show the sensitivity of the solution on the inlet condition. The solver used to simulate the gas-liquid flow is FLOTRACS-MP-3D, which originally used a Partial Elimination Algorithm (PEA) for solving the momentum equations. It has been upgraded with a coupled solver for the momentum equations. The numerical results are compared with the experimental data of Deen (2001).