Revista de Ingeniería

revinge | eISSN 2011-0049 | ISSN 0121-4993

CFD modeling of Air-Water Two-phase Annular Flow before a 90° elbow

No. 43 (2015-07-01)
  • Andrés Felipe Melo Zambrano
    (1) B. S. in Chemical Engineering, University of Los Andes. Bogotá, Colombia. af.melo730@uniandes.edu.co
  • Nicolas Ratkovich
    (2) Ph. D, M. Sc., Assistant Professor, University of Los Andes, Department of Chemical Engineering, Product and Process Design Group (GDPP). Bogotá, Colombia. nrios262@uniandes.edu.co
https://doi.org/10.16924/riua.v0i43.843

Abstract

In this work, a Computational Fluid Dynamics model is presented for the analysis of annular air-water flow before a 90° bend with a radius to diameter ratio (r/D) of 1.5, implementing the Volume of Fluid (VOF) model in STAR-CCM+ v9.2. An 8m-long vertical tube with an internal diameter of 0.076 m was studied for ten different air and water superficial velocities. The mean void fraction was compared between the experimental measurements, the CFD model, and a model in OLGA. The CFD and OLGA model presented an average relative error of 8.79 % and 17.05 %, respectively.

Keywords: Annular Flow, CFD, Two-Phase Flow, Water-Air System