Assemblage of turbulent jet flows through static particulate media

P Lauk, J H Rebassa, A Kartushinsky, S Tisler, T Tähemaa, A Polonsky
2016 Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences  
The work consists in numerical modelling of two-phase flow in porous media. The performance of a vertical cylinder pellets dryer with four lateral jets discharging air to a motionless particulate medium was modelled. The aim was to better understand the mechanism of heat exchange and the effect of different parameters on the fluid going through a particulate medium. The flow was considered non-isothermal and turbulent. The cases were first calculated for a single phase (isothermal and
more » ... rmal) and then for two phases with changing the particles volume fraction and size. The Boussinesq approach was used to take into account the effect of temperature on the gas velocity, and the k-ε model was applied for the closure of momentum equations. The solution algorithm was built using a scheme of finite differences with the tri-diagonal matrix algorithm. The results show how different variables, such as axial velocity or temperature of lateral jets flow, start with high values in the inlets and merge and collapse further downstream while the flow goes through the medium. The axial velocity drops from the jets up to the end of the system. This drop is higher for larger particles volume fractions. The radial velocity tends to increase from a null value faster for larger particles volume fractions. As the drag increases, the temperature drops faster for larger particles volume fractions and for bigger particles, which can be explained by the higher energy transfer between the flow and the particles.
doi:10.3176/proc.2016.3.05 fatcat:mkwxiugpdvcvxc5ra5lxv3ew6u