Numerical simulation of droplet dispersion and deposition in pipes

Abstract

Multiphase flows are commonly encountered in industrial processes but remain challenging to predict. The role of droplets in the setting of various flow patterns seen in pipes is capital. Being able to simulate accurately the motion, the dispersion, the deposition and the entrainment of droplets from a liquid film or pool would allow refining the various numerical models and would provide a useful insight to people involved with such flows. The PhD work summarised in this thesis aims at answering that ambitious goal, i.e. to reproduce the whole "life" of a cloud of droplets, with application to pipes and industrial systems. To the author’s knowledge, such study has never been realized with any open source computational fluid dynamics code such as OpenFOAM and in such details. An original surface-tracking motion has also been developed to solve wavy-stratified flows and droplets entrainment by extending OpenFOAM’s capabilities. The Lagrangian framework has been selected for this study as the relationship with various forces could be expressed directly and statistical information, including any Eulerian field if needed, could be retrieved.