Scale-up Technique of Slurry Pipelines—Part 1: Turbulence Modeling

Abstract

A kinetic energy turbulence model is proposed for the flow simulation and scale-up of slurry pipelines (in Part 1). The numerical integration is performed by using a modified finite volume technique with application to high convective, two-phase flows, in two and three dimensions (in Part 2 [1]). The mixture kinetic energy and eddy viscosity one-equation turbulence models are compared. The constitutive equations and model constants are tested using laboratory experiments and then employed for large-scale applications. The governing equations are derived from the space/time averaging of the momentum equations and integrated in the pipe cross section using the finite volume approach. The specific interaction stresses (liquid-liquid, liquid-solid, solid-solid and solid-wall) are expressed in the mathematical formulation. The predictions for the velocity and concentration distributions, as well as on the mean velocity-headloss correlations, have been compared to available experimental data (water-sand, water-glass, water-coal mixtures; of concentrations αS = 5 – 40 vol percent, in pipes of various diameters D = 40 – 500 mm). The suggested model can simulate multi-species particulate pipe flow for which the semiempirical methods cannot be satisfactorily applied. The numerical tests and comparison to experiments show the model capabilities to scale-up data from laboratory to real flow situations via infinitesimal two-phase flow analysis.