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A simplified 2-D model to predict liquid flux distribution and collection efficiency in
a Venturi scrubber was tested successfully with experimental data from pilot- and indus-
trial-scale units. Establishing nonuniformity of flux distribution is the key to estimating
collection efficiencies accurately. Liquid jet penetration and liquid injection ®elocity are
critical in defining flux distribution for the entire range of conditions simulated. Increase
in gas ®elocity makes flux distribution more uniform and enhances collection efficien-
cies. This effect becomes insignificant beyond a gas ®elocity as finer droplets get acceler-
ated quickly to the throat gas ®elocity gi®ing the collector ®ery little interaction time.
Increase or decrease in the liquid to gas (LrG) ratio beyond an optimum ®alue made
flux distribution more nonuniform and decreases collection efficiencies. Design parame-
ters of the Venturi scrubber (aspect ratio and nozzle diameter) ha®e an optimum that
offers the most uniform flux distribution and the maximum collection efficiency. A new
dimensionless group, the Venturi number, deri®ed from the jet penetration correlation,
could define both nonuniformity in flux distribution and collection efficiency for changes
in the LrG ratio, aspect ratio, nozzle diameter, and number of nozzles. Simulation
results indicate that a maximum efficiency exists for the Venturi number between 1.0
and 1.5 = 10 y 3 . The useful length of the scrubber throat could be determined from the
LrG ratio defined by the Venturi number concept and appropriate throat gas ®elocity.
Introduction
The Venturi scrubber is a high energy impaction, atomiz- pardi and Govan, 1984; Haller et al., 1989; Koehler et al.,
ing system that is useful for controlling emissions of both par- 1987; Viswanathan et al., 1984; Boll, 1973; Guntheroth, 1966..
ticulate and gaseous pollutants ŽFigure 1.. The particulate As a result, the earlier design approaches include efficiency
collection efficiency of a Venturi scrubber is a complex func- models that generally overpredicted efficiencies at all LrG
tion of many variables including aerodynamic particle size, ratios. To accurately describe the physical phenomena occur-
liquid-to-gas ŽLrG. ratio, liquid jet penetration, liquid drop- ring in a Venturi scrubber, a true representation of the flux
size distribution, throat coverage by liquid drops, film flow distribution throughout the scrubber must be available as a
rates, and geometrical configuration of the scrubber. Several function of both operating and design variables. This article
attempts have been made to theoretically optimize Venturi presents a new design procedure that has been developed to
scrubbers ŽGoel and Hollands, 1977; Leith and Cooper, 1980; estimate maximum particle collection efficiency as a function
Cooper and Leith, 1984; Haller et al., 1989.. The principal of operating and design variables.
limitations of all of these design approaches were the as-
sumption of the existence of only a homogeneous core with Literature Review
uniform flux across the scrubber and the absence of film flow
Since the first pilot-plant application of a Venturi scrubber
on the wall. Visual observations and experimentation have
to a Kraft recovery furnace in the mid 1940s, many attempts
indicated the existence of an annular two-phase, two compo-
to predict Venturi scrubber performance have been made.
nent flow with a thin liquid layer on the walls and a high
These Venturi scrubber particulate collection theories in-
velocity gas stream carrying the droplets in the core ŽAzzo-
volved many approaches such as correlation of experimental
data to primary operating variables, simple analytical models,
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to S. Viswanathan. and detailed analyses requiring numerical solution.
Theoretical Model
The performance of a Venturi scrubber greatly depends on
the liquid injection, drop size, liquid flux distribution, and
initial liquid momenta. The majority of the collection process
occurs in the throat because of the presence of a high degree
of turbulence in the region caused by large relative velocities
between the drops and particles. Hence, it is important for
the theoretical model to predict the flux distribution as closely
Figure 1. Venturi scrubber used for simulation. as possible within the throat. Recent models ŽViswanathan,
1997b; Fathikalajahi et al., 1996. consider most of these con-
ditions but at the expense of large computational require-
Several important mathematical models to predict particle ments. This work is to develop a simplified model that factors
collection efficiency in a Venturi scrubber ŽAzzopardi and jet penetration length, maldistribution of liquid drops, initial
Govan, 1984; Behie and Beeckmans, 1973; Boll, 1973; Calvert, liquid momenta, drop movement in the axial direction by
1970; Ekman and Johnstone, 1951; Fathikalajahi et al., 1996; convection and in the lateral direction solely due to convec-
Placek and Peters, 1981, 1982; Viswanathan et al., 1984. use tive diffusion, nonuniform inlet dust size distribution, dust
one of these approaches. Most of the earlier design ap- motion in axial direction through convective mechanism and
proaches are based on the analytical model developed by Boll in the lateral direction through convective diffusion mecha-
Ž1973., considering drop motion and particle impaction on
nism, and particulate matter collection by droplets through
drops. In this approach, the flux distribution was assumed to inertial impaction. The model assumes uniform drop size,
be uniform across the scrubber and there was no turbulent constant film flow, no drop-to-drop interactions, uniform in-
mixing between drops and particles. However, it has been let distribution of particles, and no interaction between parti-
proven that Boll’s approach overpredicts the collection effi- cles. Only one-half of the scrubber is considered for simula-
ciency since it does not account for maldistribution of drops tion, assuming the system is symmetric. Since, in all practical
within the scrubber ŽViswanathan, 1997b.. Goel and Hol- applications, the separation distance between the liquid in-
lands Ž1977. first used Boll’s design approach to devise an jection orifices is very small, negligible variation in the drop
optimization scheme for the design of Venturi scrubbers, but concentration can be assumed in the z-direction making the
without considering such issues as nonuniform flux distribu- model 2-D ŽViswanathan, 1984, 1997b.. This makes the en-
tion and film flow on the walls. Cooper and Leith Ž1984. pro- tire system axisymmetric with respect to the physical area to
posed a 1-D model that does not account for film flow and be considered in the simulation.
assumes uniform throat coverage by liquid drops. Based on
the analysis, they concluded that the conditions necessary to Droplet motion
obtain optimum Venturi performance change with particle
diameter, throat gas velocity, and scrubber geometry. Their The droplet motion in this model is predicted as a steady-
assumptions are still unrealistic for a real scrubber. The im- state process. The 2-D steady-state continuity equation for
portance of nonuniform distribution of droplets was recog- liquid drops can be written as
nized by Haller et al. Ž1989., when they proposed a two-zone
Cd
model: droplet-laden and droplet-free zones. They proved
experimentally that the occurrence of an annular flow within x
Ž Vd x C d . s
y ž Ed
y / q Qd y Q f Ž1.
operating and design conditions was obtained from the corre- hi j s ž / Ž7.
C q0.7
lation ŽViswanathan et al., 1997a.
Dd s
42,200q5,776
1 .602
ž /
G
Ž4.
nificantly. In this work, the initial position of the liquid drops
is assumed to correspond to the point of jet atomization as
VGth
measured by ŽViswanathan et al., 1983.
Eddy diffusi©ity lU r j Vj
s 0.1145 Ž9.
Eddy diffusivity of the drop and particle can be calculated d0 rG VG ,t h
using the concept that velocity fluctuations in turbulent flow
are sinusoidal and Stokes’ Law applies to the drag on drops The flux distribution at any axial position is obtained by ap-
plying a central difference formula on Eq. 1 and representing
Ed b2 Ep b2 it in tridiagonal matrix form. Values of the drop concentra-
s ; s Ž5. tion for each cell is then calculated by solving this matrix
EG v qb 2 2
EG v q b2
2
using Gaussian elimination and back substitution. Particulate
matter is introduced as uniformly distributed dust particles
The value of v was taken as 300 and EGrŽ VG Deq . s 0.01
ŽViswanathan, 1997b.. moving with the same velocity as the gas stream. The particle
distribution at any axial position is then determined in a way
similar to the flux distribution. From the concentrations, the
Particle motion overall cleaning efficiency at any axial location is calculated
The 2-D, steady-state, continuity equation describing the using Eq. 8.
transport of particulate matter, neglecting longitudinal diffu-
sion, has the form ŽViswanathan, 1997b. Results and Discussion
Cp Cp All the results discussed are evaluated at the throat end
0 syVG q Ep except for the industrial-scale scrubber, where they are evalu-
x y y
ated at the end of the scrubber. Assumed changes in scrub-
U U
m n phi j Fi ber dimensions have been specified. Otherwise the original
y Ý Ý Dd2 j Ž VG yVd x j . C p C d j Ž6. design specifications hold.
is 1 js 1 4
This steady-state equation is similar to Eq. 1 for droplet mo- Model ©alidation
tion, except that the source term in Eq. 1 was replaced by a The model is validated by first comparing theoretical flux
dust removal term. The principal collection mechanism in a distribution with experimental values measured in a pilot-
Figure 5. Pilot scrubber. Ža. Effect of LrG ratio on flux distribution; Žb . effect of LrG ratio on collection efficiency.
Figure 6. Pilot scrubber. Ža. Effect of aspect ratio on flux distribution; Žb. effect of aspect ratio on collection efficiency.
velocities increase the jet penetration length, thus atomizing wide range of LrG ratios, throat gas velocities, nozzle diame-
the jets further away from the scrubber wall and making a ters, and aspect ratios. The effect of number of nozzles was
lesser amount of liquid flow as film on the walls. However, a not considered in this work since the model assumes a negli-
very high penetration length causes nonuniformity in droplet gible variation of flux in the plane of injection as a conse-
flux distribution and impedes the collection efficiency. Fig- quence of a good nozzle arrangement. From these figures, it
ures 7a and 7b show the variation in droplet flux and collec- can be seen that the maximum efficiency occurs within a con-
tion efficiency as a function of nozzle diameter. An increase stant range of the Venturi number for all operating condi-
in nozzle diameter from 1.4 to 2.1 mm gives a 15% increase tions. At these conditions, it is found that the fractional jet
in efficiency, and a further increase to 3.86 mm decreases the penetration is between 25]35% of the throat width Ž2 R 0 ..
efficiency by 8%. Evidently, jet penetration length is critical This was found to be the same by Fathikalajahi et al. Ž1996..
to the removal efficiency since changes in nozzle diameter at Based on this analysis, the conditions that fix the jet penetra-
constant throat gas velocity and LrG ratio affect jet penetra- tion within these limits give the most uniform flux distribu-
tion. Fathikalajahi et al. Ž1996. reported similar observations tion and highest collection efficiency. It is important to note
using a 3-D model approach for the Brink and Contant that the nozzle arrangement must be designed in such a way
scrubber. that there is a minimal variation due to dispersion of droplets,
Venturi Number Concept. As the simulation shows, the flux and, in turn, of flux distribution in the plane of injection.
distribution varies as a function of gas throat velocity, LrG Moreover, for a fixed Venturi number, higher aspect ratios
ratio, nozzle diameter, and aspect ratio. Though smaller drop obtained by reducing the throat width results in higher col-
size and higher liquid loading help remove efficiency, the jet lection efficiencies for the same LrG ratio and throat gas
penetration length has a dominating effect on the uniformity velocity. This effect becomes insignificant for higher aspect
of flux distribution and dictates the collection process. The ratios, as shown in Figure 9. However, in this case, the throat
parameters analyzed previously can be combined to form a cross-sectional area is not maintained constant. This affects
dimensionless group identified as the Venturi number the quantity of gas and liquid handled by the system. Now,
the four parameters defining the Venturi number, namely,
L R0 Z LrG ratio, nozzle diameter, aspect ratio, and number of noz-
Venturi number, VN s
ž GU d 0 n j / Ž 11. zles can be chosen along with appropriate throat gas velocity
to obtain maximum efficiency. Most optimal gas velocities are
between 70]90 mrs, as can be seen from Figure 4b and as
Figures 8a to 8d show the effect of the Venturi number for a confirmed by Fathikalajahi et al. Ž1996. for the industrial scale
into lower flux values toward the end of the throat, thereby both flux distribution and collection efficiency accurately.
producing a relatively better coverage further downstream of v Maximum efficiency is found to occur when penetration
the throat. Increase of liquid rate indiscriminately at constant is around 25]35% of the throat width.
gas velocity does not necessarily result in higher collection v Both gas velocity and LrG ratio affect uniformity of
efficiencies since it may result in a high degree of maldistri- throat coverage. However, coverage seems to be less de-
bution ŽFigure 10c.. Haller et al. Ž1989. reported similar ob- pendent on gas velocity than LrG ratio.