13h Australasian Fluid Mechanics Conference Monash University, Melbourne, Australia 19:18 December 1998 NUMERICAL MODELLING OF TWO-PHASE FLOW A VALIDATION EXAMPLE Darrin W. STEPHENS and Jonathan A. HARRIS ‘School of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, AUSTRALIA ABSTRACT ‘This paper explores a simple test problem that can be used for the validation of Eulerian two- phase flow CFD models. Validation results are presented for a commercial CFD code with multi- phase flow capability, namely CFX-4.2, produced by AEA Technology. ‘The results show that CPX-4.2 exhibits virtu- ally perfect agreement with all 12 test cases over a full range of input parameters using a very mod- erate mesh, INTRODUCTION Modelling of two-phase flow using commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes has recently become a reality, with a number of ven- dors now offering Eulerian multiphase flow capa- bilities. In order to gain confidence in the accu- racy of such codes it is essential to study simple two-phase flow problems with known solutions. In this way issues such as mesh requirements, choice of solver parameters anc implementation of user-defined subroutines may be investigated ‘thoroughly before the code is applied to more complex problems in whieh the solution is known. This step is particularly important in multiphase flow as the solutions ean often be com plex and non-intuitive GOVERNING EQUATIONS ‘The equations governing Eulerian multiphase fluid-fluid flows are presented in chapter 12 of the CFX-4.2 Solver manual (Anon., 1997). Each phase, denoted by a, interpenetrates with the other phases and occupies a volme fraction ra For Np phases, the sum of the volume fractions rust equal unity, viz: a) ‘The continuity equation for phase a is Ltinas tinge) (2) 2 rapa) +9 (rapaite) where ia is the velocity of phase a, pa is the den- sity of phase a and rag characterises the mass transfer from phase to phase a. Note that Joa = 0. Assuming no body forces cr momen- ‘umn sources the conservation of momentum equa- tion for phase «is, trapatta) +ra¥a+¥- (ralpala ®a)) HV (Hal Vila + (Viéa)")) % Ne DV hide - ida) + DGitasiiy — tnpaita) (3) fi 5 whore old isthe interphase drag coficint. The imerphase mass transfer is defined as follows ita = max(—Sa,0), thay = max(Soa,0) where sag is the mass flow rate per unit volume from phase a to phase 3 Thus say 20 Tita Sag $0 titag = Sap, thge ‘The above equations apply to the general case of N, phases. In what follows, a simplified set of these equations will be derived that apply to ‘one-dimensional two phase flow with mass trans- fer. This case has a known solution and so is ideal for development and validation of two-phase flow numerical solutions. For example, when develop- ing mass and momentum transfer subroutines it, is best to solve a problem with a known solution,to ensure that the subroutines have been imple- mented correctly. One-dimensional two-phase flow Consider the case of steady state, incompressible flow in a horizontal channel of constant cross sec- tion. Itis assumed that one-dimensional flow oc- curs so that all quantities have uniform (ie., con- stant) profiles at any x position, that all phases experience the same pressure and the momentum exchange due to drag is ignored ( ‘Also, assume that only two phases are’ present (f and g), and that there is a mass transfer rate per unit Volume of ri from phase f to phase g (Ge, ayy = rn). Further, let the volume fraction of phase f be ry so that, by continuity, the vol- ume fraction of phase g is 1 — ry. Under these assumptions the continuity equations simplify to ta —ryovnd “) peressy) = ) and the momentum equations to 0 =r Z tupin= Baro) (6) a me iE = upin = F(rop0§) a In the above momentum equations the shear stress terms, such as d(rypiydu/dx)/de, have been omitted since they can be made negligibly small by choosing a low viscosity “These equations may be rearranged to yield the following set of coupled ordinary diferential equa- Meare ine aakoowsa yp td ey _ [ety oie] og au, _[r+mn't] og ae (l= rs)e de a=") (10) 1 gpg ds (uy If the conditions at the channel inlet are known, these equations may be integrated along the channel (e.g., using the ODE solver routines in Matlab™) to yield profiles of ry, uy, p and uy. ‘The mass transfer per unit volume from phase f to phase g (1) must either be given (eg., a con- stant) or expressed in terms of the solution vari- ables. In this study the following equation was used to compute ri, since this is used by CPX: ra = Currgpy a) Here Cy is a constant with units of inverse sec- onds. NUMERICAL MODELLING In the previous section, a limiting case of two- phase flow with a known solution was identi- fied. ‘This limiting case is an ideal test case for multiphase flow CFD models. ‘The case of one~ dimensional two-phase flow involves mass trans- fer and so is particularly useful for checking that user-defined mass transfer subroutines function correctly. In this section a commercial code with. ‘multiphase flow capabilities is applied to solve the test problem. The code is CFX-4.2, produced by AEA Technology. mt }_—____J Figure 1: Channel geometry used for simulations ‘The one-dimensional flow test problem was solved using the geometry, shown in Figure 1. The parallel plates in Figure 1 are 100 ram long with a plate separation of 10 mm. Since CPX-4.2 roquired a third dimension, the plate width was set to Lm. A uniform mesh of 40 cells in the x rection and 10 cells in the y direction was used in all cases, giving an aspect ratio of 2.5. The prop- erties used were for water and its vapour at 300 K. These are py = 997 ka/m®, py = 0.0256 kg/m, hy = 855 x 10-6 Pas, and juy = 9.09 x 10-7 Pas (incropera and De Witt, 1990). Note that these viscosities are small enough so that the viscous terms can be neglected in equations (6) and (7). Other properties and further solution cetails are given in the following sections, One-dimensional two-phase flow marias?™, Equations (8) through (12) were solved nu- merically using the fourth and fifth order Runge-Kutta algorithm (ode45) implemented in MATLAB (Anon., 1992). The relative error solution tolerance was set to 10-%mT | Feu (8) | eum) | teai’m®) | on/s) ns) | ups] 2 1 Poor [or | anes Tor [0s ‘Table 1 model runs. Parameters and inlet conditions for ‘The problem requires that the values of uy, uy and ry are specified at the channel inlet (1 = 0). In addition, the fluid densities (py and p,) must also be specified. A total of 12 different cases were run, covering a range of nid densities, inlet velocities and inlet volume fractions, as shown in ‘Table 1. Table 2 summarises the results of these different runs. The valnes given in the last three columns of Table 2 correspond to the values of us, My and ry , respectively, at the outlet of the one-dimensional channel As an example of the output of the program, Figure 2 shows a plot of the primary phase veloc- ity (uj), secondary phase velocity (ug), primary phase volume fraction (rj) and pressure versus streamwise position along the channel for case 12. For this particular case there is not a large change in some of the solution variables (eg. uy changes from an inlet value of 2 to an outlet value of 2.0179, whereas ry changes from 0.8 at the in- Jet to 0.7928 at the outlet). These relatively small changes provide a fairly sensitive test case for the CED code. Some of the other cases (eg. case 9) show substantial variation in the velocities and volume fractions along the channel CFKA2, One-dimensional two-phase flow can be imple- mented on a two-dimensional geometry by apply ing a boundary condition of zero shear stress at the channel walls. ‘The applied inlet. conditions, are uniform across the channel and correspond to caso 12 given in Table 1. Convergence testing was applied to the continuity equation with a conver- gence value of 110~? kg/s. No initial guess was patched to the computational domain, Figure 2 shows a plot of the primary phase velocity (uy), secondary phase velocity (t,), primary phase vol ume fraction (rj) and pressure versus streamwise position along the channel for case 12, Case 12 was the most difficult to solve requiring large un- der relaxtion of the mass transfer term for the solution to converge. The solution of this prob- Jean took 3129 CPU seconds, while the o:her cases ranged from 481 to 1456 CPU seconds running, on an SGI Power Challenge Supercomputer using ‘one R10000 CPU. ‘Comparison with MATLAB™ solution. Assuming that the numerical MATLAB™ solu- tions given in Table 2 are at least accurate to the number of significant figures shown, then a com- parison between the results given by CFX-4.2 to those given by MATLAB?™! can be made, i i i E i Figure 2: Comparison of MATLAB™ and CEX- 4.2 results for run 12, Inlet conditions and param- eters are given in Table 1. Solid lines and sym. bols correspond to MATLAB™ computations. and CFX-4.2 results, respectively. ‘The results from CFX-4.2, shown in fig ure 2, show near perfect agreement with the MATLAB™ predictions, Additionally, the so- lution values at the channel outlet. (given in Ta- ble 2) also show near perfect agreement with the MATLAB™ predictions, over the full range of test cases. At worst, there are differences in the second decimal place of the solution, which is con- sidered excellent for the relatively coarse mesh used. Figure 2 shows that as mass is transferred from phase f to phase g the velocity of phase f do- creases slightly, while the velocity of phase g in- creases drastically. The continuity equations (4) and (5) for phase g and phase f respectively, allow for the explanation of the results shown, Since the density of phase g is small compared to phase f, phase g must accelerate to satisfy continuity. From the conservation of momentum, equationsaA} PACD) 7) Run [CPX [MPLAB] CPX [MPLAB] CPX [MAB TL 2] 2 | 2 | 2 [over] orore [Waa [RT| TRS | TRAD | 07455 0.70 3 [anes | 3.968 [2.2070 | 22071 [o-7a10| 0-790 [sre] ore | 1191s [1.1915 [0.7794] 0.7704 [Losi] 198i | s.819 | SBAST [0.7755 O.77oR t 7 5 7 2 [2 | 2 [2 [o.aiso} o41o1 TaB1S [LOST | T1se | TARR |0.4305 [0-135 Pe ows 2 1100 [2 2017 | 22017 [0.5955 | 0.5055. $3292] 35004 [1F.8019] 15-8019 [ 0.2410] 0.2497 10” | 20535 | 205K [TT-BOOT [11.1005 | 0.7782 0.7787 Ti] 1.965 | 1.965 [1.9819 | 1.98109 [o.re2t| o.7a20 12 [0rro] 2017s [se.07s1 | 0507 [0.7928] 0.728 Table 2: Comparison of MATLAB?™ and CFX- 4.2 results at the channel outlet. (6) and (7), this acceleration of phase g causes a decrease in the pressure along the length of the channel as shown in figure 2. It should be noted that the solutions given by MATLAB? and CFX-4.2 for all 12 cases do not contain inter- phase drag, This omission of the interphase drag is indicated by the large increase in the velocity of phase g. It would be expected that such a large increae in velocity would be normally retarded by the interphase drag, CONCLUSIONS A simplified two-phase flow problem has been given that can be used for validation of mul- liphase flow CFD codes. ‘The case of one- dimensional two-phase flow with mass transfer re sults in a system of coupled ODEs which can be integrated with high accuracy. ‘The performance of a commercial CFD code CFX-4.2, was evaluated by applying it to solve the test problem. The results show that CFX-4.2 exhibits virtually perfect agreement with all 12 ‘est cases over a range of input parameters using a very moderate mesh REFERENCES ANON., CFX-4.2 Solver Manual, CFX Inter- national, Harwell, Didcot, Oxfordshire, 1997. ANON., MATLAB Reference Guide, The Math- Works Inc, MA, USA, MathWorks, 1992. INCROPERA, F.P. and DE WITT, DP, Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer, Wiley, Singapore, 1990.