Lecture 1:

Introduction
15.0 Release

Advanced Multiphase Course

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 Outline

Examples of Multiphase Flows

Definitions and Terminology
Modelling Strategies
Modelling options in Fluent

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 Examples of Multiphase Flows
1 Pressurised Water Reactor 2

Power Systems

Geothermal Power Plant

3 Film Evaporator 4
3

Heat Transfer Systems

Cooling Towers
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 Examples of Multiphase Flows
1 Chemical Reactor 2

Process System

Distillation Column

3 Spray Dryer 4
3

3 Phase Separator
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 Examples of Multiphase Flows
1 Mud flow 2
2
1

Environmental Control

Industrial Pollution

Water Treatment
3 4
3

Spillway
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 What is Multiphase Flow?
1 1
Multi-phase flows is simply any fluid flow system 2

consisting of
Gas Liquid
Two or more distinct phases flowing simultaneously in
mixture, and
Have some level of phase separation at a scale well above 3

the molecular level Solid Single Phase

Systems

Multi-phase flows exist in many different forms. 4 5

Two-phase flows can be classified according to the
state of the different phases Liquid
Gas/Liquid
/Solid
Gas-Liquid mixture,
gas-solid mixture, 6
Liquid-solid mixture, and Two Phase
Gas/Solid
Immiscible-liquid mixture Systems

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 Classification of Multiphase Flows: Gas-Solid Flows

Gassolid flow, identified as gassolid or gas 1

droplet flows, is concerned with the motion of

suspended solid or droplet in the gas phase
Depending on the particle number density, these
flows can be characterized as either being dilute
or dense

Dense Dilute

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 Classification of Multiphase Flows: Gas-Solid Flows
Cyclone
Separator
When the particle number density is relatively small, the
influence of the gas flow dominant :
Referred to as a dilute gasparticle flow
Governed by the surface and body forces acting on the particles
Example : Cyclone separator

When the particle number density is sufficiently large, the

particles motion is controlled by particleparticle interactions
Referred to as a dense gasparticle flows
Example: Fluidized bed reactor

Gasparticle flows are also referred to as dispersed flows

because the solid particles (dispersed phase) are dispersed gas
phase (continuous phase) Fluidized
Bed Reactor
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 Classification of Multiphase Flows: Liquid-Solid Flows
1
Liquidsolid flow is the transport of solid particles
in liquid
Also referred to as slurry transportation

In comparison to gasparticle flows, the liquid-

solid flow are mainly driven by and the pressure
gradients
Slurry transportation is required in a diverse 2

range of sectors, from food to minerals

processing; and oil sands processing to nuclear
waste management

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 Classification of Multiphase Flows: Gas-Liquid Flows
Gasliquid flows can assume several different configurations:
Dispersed Flows, 1

Mixed or transitional flows, and

Separated flows and

Examples of dispersed flows

Motion of bubbles in a liquid flow
Liquid is the continuous phase and the bubbles are the dispersed phase
Motion of liquid droplets in a gas
Gas is the continuous phase and the droplets are the dispersed phase
Bubbles and Droplets are permitted to deform freely within the continuous
phase, they can take on different geometrical shapes:
Spherical, elliptical, distorted, and cap

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 Classification of Multiphase Flows: Gas-Liquid Flows
In addition to dispersed flows, gasliquid flows also
exhibit other interfacial structures, namely:
Mixed or transitional flows
Separated flows and

The transitional or mixed flows denote the transition

between the dispersed flows and separated flows, which Annular flow regime in vertical
up-wards air and water flow
is characterized by the presence of both of these flows
Free surface flows, on the hand are identified by the
presence of well-defined interfaces and mainly of gas and
liquid flows, where both phases are considered as
continuous

Hydrodynamic wave loading on ship

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 Flow Regimes in Vertical Pipe Configuration

2
Different flow regimes observed in vertical up-wards air and water
flow

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 Multiphase Flow Regime Maps
Physical parameters like density of gas
A generic two-phase vertical flow map and liquid, viscosity, surface tension, etc.
affect the flow regimes and are not
included in this graph
A very important factor is the diameter of
the flow line, if the liquid and gas flow
rates are kept constant and the flow line
size is decreased from 4 to 3, both the
superficial gas and liquid velocities will
increase by a factor 16/9. Hence, in the
two-phase flow map this point will move
up and right along the diagonal to a new
position. This could cause a change in flow
regime, e.g. changing from bubbly flow to
slug flow or changing from slug flow to
annular flow
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 Examples of Multiphase Flow: Gas/Liquid-Solid
Flows
Gas-Solid Flows
Natural: sand storms, volcanoes, avalanches
Biological: aerosols, dust particles, soot, rain droplets,
mist
Industrial: pneumatic conveyers, dust collectors,
fluidized beds, pulverized solid particles, spray drying

Liquid-Solid Flows
Natural: sediment transport, soil erosion, mud slides,
debris flows
Biological: blood flow
Industrial: slurry transportation, flotation, fluidized
beds, water jet cutting, sewage treatment plants

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 Examples of Multiphase Flow: Gas/Liquid-Liquid
Flows
Gas-Liquid Flows
Natural: ocean waves
Biological: blood flow
Industrial: boiling water and pressurized water
nuclear reactors, chemical reactor desalination
systems, boilers, heat exchangers, ICE, fire sprinkler
suppression systems

Liquid-Liquid Flows
Industrial: emulsifiers, fuel-cell systems,
extraction systems, phase separators

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 Examples of Multiphase Flows: Remarks
The complex nature of multi-phase flows, exists because
of: System
Scale
The existence of dynamically changing interfaces,
Significant discontinuities of the fluid properties, and
Complicated flow field near the interface
Multiphase flows are inherently multi-scale in nature. It Meso Macro
Scale
is necessary to account for the cascading effects of the Scale
various flow physics at different scales:
Large flow structures within the fluid flow at the System scale,
Local structural changes due to coalescence and breakage Micro
processes the meso scale, and Scale
Motion of discrete constituents due to m at the micro-scale

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 Examples of Multiphase Flows: Remarks
With the current availability of computational resources, it is possible to solve
directly for multiphase flows and compute every detail including: the motion of all
the fluid around and inside every particle, bubble and drop, and the position of
every interface
Such comprehensive treatment is restricted to low Reynolds number flows and
dynamics of a limited amount of individual particles, bubbles and drops
However, macroscopic formulation of multiphase flow equations, based on
proper averaging, enables simulation of large-scale, highly turbulent multi phase
flow systems
Only gross features are predicted
Predictions are Dependent on realistic closure models for the interfacial exchanges for
mass, momentum and energy transfer as well as turbulent effects

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 Fundamental Definitions: Volume Fractions

The volume fraction of the dispersed phase is defined as:

=

Equivalently, the volume fraction of continuous phase is:

=

And by definition, the sum if the volume fractions must be unity

+ =

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 Fundamental Definitions: Superficial and Phase
Velocities
The superficial velocity of each phase is the mass flow rate of that phase
divided by the pipe area A and phase density. The superficial velocity for the
dispersed phase is

=

In other words, it the velocity of the phase if the phase occupied the whole pipe
area

The phase velocity is the actual velocity of the phase, and it is related to the
superficial velocity by the volume fraction

=

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 Fundamental Definitions: Response Time

The response time of a particle or droplet is the time required for a particle
to be released from rest to achieve 63%, ,of the free stream velocity

dv p d p 2

q q u v u v
1
mp CD
dt 2 4
dv 18 q C D Re
u v
1
u v
dt p d p2 24 p
p d p2
p
18 q

v t
1 e p Example: Water droplet in air
u
= , = , = . .

= .
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 Fundamental Definitions: Stokes Number
The Stokes number give a measure of temporal
1
correlation between particle velocity and the fluid
velocity and is defined as

=

If St <<1, the particle response time is much less than
the characteristic time associated with the flow field.
In this case the particles will have ample time to
respond to changes in flow velocity and, the particle
and fluid velocities will be nearly equal

If St>>1, then the particle will have essentially no

time to respond to the fluid velocity changes and the
particle velocity will be little affected by fluid velocity Normalized particle distribution for varying Stokes
change number

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 Fundamental Definitions: Disperse and Dense
Flows 1

A dilute flow, is one in which the particle motion is

controlled by the fluid forces (drag and lift)
A dense flow, on the other hand, is one in which the
particle motion is controlled by collisions
There is a further classification of dense flows:
collision- and contact-dominated. In collision-
dominated flow the collisions between the particles 2

control the features of the flow, such as in a fluidized

bed
In a contact dominated flow, the particle motion is
controlled by continuous contact such as in a shear
granular flow
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 Fundamental Definitions: Phase Coupling
If the flow of one phase affects the other, while there is no reverse effect, the
flow is said to be one-way-coupled
If there is a mutual effect between the flows of both phases, then the flow is
two-way-coupled
Coupling can take place through mass, momentum, and energy transfer
between phases.
Mass coupling is the addition/removal of mass through evaporation/condensation
Momentum coupling is the result of an interaction force, such as a drag force
Momentum coupling can occur as a results of mass transfer
Energy coupling occurs through heat transfer between phases
Thermal and kinetic energy

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 Fundamental Definitions: Further definitions of
Phase Coupling
If the wakes and other disturbances in Four-way coupling
the carrier phase affect the motion of
the dispersed phase, then the flows is Particle Particle
said to be three-way coupled
One-way coupling

If in addition to dispersed phase/carrier- Two-way coupling

phase interaction, particleparticle

collisions also affect the multiphase
motion, then the flow is said to be four- Fluid
way coupled

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 Fundamental Definitions: Phase Coupling

Four-way coupling effects become
important when particle volume
fraction exceeds Dispersed two-phase flow as a function of the particle volume fraction and
inter-particle spacing
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 Averaging

In two-phase flow the local instant fluctuations of variables are caused by

turbulence and rapidly moving and deforming interfaces
It is not possible to solve for local instant motions of the fluid particles, and in
order to derive appropriate field and constitutive equations, we apply some
averaging procedures to the original local instant formulation
There are two notable consequences from the spatial and temporal averaging
when it is applied to a two-phase mixture:
Smoothing out of turbulent fluctuations in same sense as in a single phase flow
Transformation of two phases, alternately occupying a point, into two simultaneous
continua

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 Temporal and Spatial Averaging

Temporal Averaging Spatial Averaging

1 0.5

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 Dispersed Phase Diameter

Particle diameter is used in interaction drag

calculations.
There are three ways to calculate dispersed phase
diameter
Constant if you know representative size of
dispersed phase describing your size distribution

User-defined if you know some correlation for

your particle size as function of local flow
parameters (velocity, temperature, pressure)

Population Balance Model (Sauter-mean)

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 Dispersed Phase Diameter Estimation
Critical Weber number serves as criteria for
equilibrium between coalescence and
breakup and enables calculation an
equilibrium particle diameter: Bubble

The critical Weber is given as:

, = 2.48
= = , = 1.17



= =

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 Eulerian-Lagrangian Approach

In this concept the individual particles are

treated as rigid spheres (i.e., neglecting
particle deformation and internal flows) being
so small that they can be considered as point
centres of mass in space
The translational motion of the particle is
governed by the Newtons second law
The Eulerian-Lagrangian approach is strictly
valid for simulating dispersed multiphase
flows containing a low (<10%) volume fraction
of dispersed phase

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 Eulerian-Eulerian Approach
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
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In the Eulerian-Eulerian (E-E) approach both
the dispersed particle phase and continuous
fluid phase are solved using the NS
The volume fractions as well as other phasic
are solved for both the phases are also solved
at these control volumes
An advantage of the multi-fluid model it that
in principle it can be used to compute any
multiphase flow regime, provided that an
adequate closure relation for the interfacial
coupling terms are provided
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 Volume of Fluid Approach

The volume of fluid method is applicable for

Continuous/ separated flows or stratified or where the
Primary Phase dispersed phase is well separated from the
continuous phase with a distinct interface
A single set of governing equation is solved
for both phases using mixture properties.
Dispersed Phase/ The VOF models require a proper numerical
Second Continuous Phase advection scheme to approximate the
transport of the scalar function in an accurate
manner avoiding numerical diffusion

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 Modelling Strategies in FLUENT

Eulerian Multiphase

Mixture Model Heterogeneous Mixture

Homogenous Heterogeneous Eulerian Granular

Free Surface Cavitation Boiling Multi-fluid VOF DDPM

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