Modeling and simulation of

Mutiphase flows
(CFD tips)

Pouriya Niknam
Supervisor: Dr. Daniele Fiaschi
 2

Outline

Multiphse flow introduction, definition and types

Tips on multiphase simulation

Definitions
Multiphase flow is simultaneous flow of:
Materials with different states or phases (i.e. gas, liquid or solid).
Materials with different chemical properties but in the same state or phase
(i.e. liquid-liquid systems such as oil droplets in water).

The primary and secondary phases:

One of the phases is continuous (primary) while the other(s) (secondary) are
dispersed within the continuous phase.
A diameter has to be assigned for each secondary phase to calculate its
interaction (drag) with the primary phase.
 Why model multiphase flow?
Multiphase flow is important in many industrial processes:
Riser reactors.
Bubble column reactors. Model Specific
Lagrangian Dispersed Phase
Fluidized bed reactors. Algebraic Slip
Scrubbers, dryers, etc. Eulerian
Eulerian Granular
Typical objectives of a modeling analysis: Volume of Fluid
Maximize the contact between the different phases, typically
different chemical compounds.
Flow dynamics.
Optimization /scale up/ new geometries

Flow Specific
bubbly
? Process Specific
droplet Separation
particle-laden Filtration
slug Suspension
annular Evaporation
stratified/free surface Reaction
rapid granular flow
multiphase or multicomponent?
– Distinguish multiphase and/or multicomponent
• Liquid/Gas or Gas/Liquid
• Gas/Solid
• Liquid/Liquid
– Technically, two immiscible liquids are “multi-fluid”, but are
often referred to as a “multiphase” flow due to their similarity
in behavior
Single component Multi-component
Water Air
Single phase
Pure nitrogen H2O+oil emulsions
Coal particles in air
Multi-phase Steam bubble in H2O
Sand particle in H2O

Phase interaction & Species interaction

 Dispersed/Interfacial
• Flows are also generally categorized by distribution of the components

– “separated” or “interfacial”
• both fluids are more or less contiguous throughout the
domain

– “dispersed”
• One of the fluids is dispersed as non-contiguous
isolated regions within the other (continuous) phase.
• The former is the “dispersed” phase, while the latter
is the “carrier” phase.
• One can now describe/classify the geometry of the
dispersion:
• Size & geometry
• Volume fraction
Gas-Liquid Flow

Bubbly Pipe Flow – heat exchangers in power plants, A/C units

Aeration:
-produced by wave action
- used as reactor in chemical processing
- enhanced gas-liquid mass transfer

Ship wakes – detectability

Cavitation – noise, erosion of structures
Liquid-Gas Flow
Weather – cloud formation
Biomedical – inhalant drug delivery

Gas-Liquid Flow
Energy production – liquid fuel combustion
Biomedical – inhalant drug delivery
Gas-Solid Flow

Environmental – avalanche, pyroclastic flow, ash

plume, turbidity currents

Granular Flow – collision dominated

dynamics; chemical processing
Liquid-Liquid
Chemical production – mixing and reaction of immiscible liquids
Solid-Liquid
Sediment Transport – pollution, erosion of beaches,
drainage and flood control

Settling/sedimentation, turbidity currents

 Solid-Gas
Material processing – generation of particles & composite materials
Energy production – coal combustion

Aerosol formation – generation of particles & environmental safety

Coupling between phases
• One-way coupling: Sufficiently dilute such that fluid feels no effect
from presence of particles. Particles move in dynamic response to
fluid motion.
– Fluid phase influences particulate phase via aerodynamic drag and
turbulence transfer.
– No influence of particulate phase on the continous phase.

• Two-way coupling: Enough particles are present such that

momentum exchange between dispersed and carrier phase interfaces
alters dynamics of the carrier phase.
– Fluid phase influences particulate phase via aerodynamic drag and
turbulence transfer.
– Particulate phase reduces mean momentum and turbulent kinetic
energy in fluid phase.

• Four-way coupling: Flow is dense enough that dispersed phase

collisions are significant momentum exchange mechanism
• Includes all two-way coupling.
• Particle-particle collisions create particle pressure and viscous
stresses.
Modeling approach
Empirical correlations.

Increased complexity
Lagrangian
Track individual point particles.
Particles do not interact.
Algebraic slip model
Mixture model
Dispersed phase in a continuous phase.
Solve one momentum equation for the mixture.
Neither particle-wall interaction nor particle-particle are taken into account
Two-fluids theory (multi-fluids)
Eulerian-Eulerian models: two co-existing fluids
Solve as many momentum equations as there are phases.
Particle-wall interaction taken into account, particle-particle usually not.
Eulerian-granular model (EGM)
Both particle-wall and particle-particle interaction are taken into account
dispersed phase model (DPM)
Eulerian/Lagrangian
Solve the trajectories of individual objects and their collisions, inside a continuous phase.
Particle-wall interaction always taken into account, particle-particle usually not
Fully resolved and coupled.
Modeling approach, DPM
Trajectories of particles/droplets are
computed in a Lagrangian frame.
Exchange (couple) heat, mass, and momentum
with Eulerian frame gas phase.
Discrete phase volume fraction should
preferably be less than 10%.
Mass loading can be large (+100%).
No particle-particle interaction or break up.
Turbulent dispersion modeled by:
Stochastic tracking.
Particle cloud model.
Model particle separation, spray drying,
liquid fuel or coal combustion, etc.
Multiphase flow regimes

User must know the characteristics of the flow.

Flow regime, e.g. bubbly flow, slug flow, annular flow, etc.
Laminar or turbulent
Dilute or dense
Secondary phase diameter for drag considerations.
Phases interaction...
 Available Solvers Pressure-Based Pressure-Based Density-Based
(segregated) (coupled) (coupled)

Solve U-Momentum
• There are two kinds of solvers available
in FLUENT – Pressure based and Density Solve V-Momentum Solve Mass,
based. Solve Mass Momentum,
Solve W-Momentum & Momentum Energy,
Species
• The pressure-based solvers take Solve Mass
momentum and pressure (or pressure Continuity;
Update Velocity
correction) as the primary variables.
– Pressure-velocity coupling algorithms are
derived by reformatting the continuity Solve Energy
equation
• Two algorithms are available with the Solve Species
pressure-based solvers:
– Segregated solver – Solves for pressure
Solve Turbulence Equation(s)
correction and momentum sequentially.
– Coupled Solver (PBCS) – Solves pressure
and momentum simultaneously. Solve Other Transport Equations as required
 Choosing a Solver
• The pressure-based solver is applicable for a wide range of flow regimes from low
speed incompressible flow to high-speed compressible flow.
– Requires less memory (storage).
– Allows flexibility in the solution procedure.
• The pressure-based coupled solver (PBCS) is applicable for most single phase
flows, and yields superior performance to the standard pressure-based solver.
– Now available for multiphase (Eulerian)
– Requires 1.5–2 times more memory than the segregated solver.
• The density-based coupled solver (DBCS) is applicable when there is a strong
coupling, or interdependence, between density, energy, momentum, and/or
species.
– Examples: High speed compressible flow with combustion, hypersonic flows, shock
interactions.
 Convergence Difficulties with multiphase
• Numerical instabilities can arise with an ill-posed problem, poor-quality mesh and/or
inappropriate solver settings.
– Exhibited as increasing (diverging) or “stuck” residuals.
– Unconverged results are very misleading!

• Troubleshooting
1. Ensure that the problem is well-posed.
2. Compute an initial solution using a
first-order discretization scheme.
3. For the pressure-based solver, decrease Continuity equation convergence
underrelaxation factors for equations trouble affects convergence of
having convergence problems. all equations.
4. For the density-based solver, reduce
the Courant number.
5. Disabling Volume fraction &phase equations
6. Remesh or refine cells which have large
aspect ratio or large skewness.
(Remember that you cannot improve
cell skewness by using mesh adaption!)
 Modifying Under-Relaxation Factors
• Under-relaxation factor, α, is included to stabilize the
iterative process for the pressure-based solver
• Use default under-relaxation factors to start a calculation.

• Decreasing under-relaxation
for momentum often aids
convergence.
– Default settings are suitable for a
wide range of problems, you can
reduce the values when necessary.
– Appropriate settings are best learned
from experience!
 Modifying the Courant Number
• A transient term is included in the density-based solver even for
steady state problems.
– The Courant number defines the
time step size.
• For density-based explicit solver:
– Stability constraints impose a
maximum limit on the Courant
number.
• Cannot be greater than 2
(default value is 1).
• Reduce the Courant number when
having difficulty converging.
• For density-based implicit solver:
– The Courant number is not limited
by stability constraints.
• Default value is 5.
 Starting from a Previous Solution
• A previously calculated solution can be
used as an initial condition when
changes are made to the case setup.
– Use solution interpolation to
initialize a run (especially
useful for starting fine-mesh cases
when coarse-mesh solutions are
available).
– Once the solution is initialized,
additional iterations always use
the current data set as the starting
Actual Problem Initial Condition
point.
Heat Transfer Isothermal
– Some suggestions on how to
Natural convection Low Rayleigh number
provide initial conditions for some
actual problems: Turbulence Inviscid (Euler) solution
 Steady or Unsteady

• Nearly all flows in nature are transient!

– Steady-state assumption is possible if we:
• Ignore unsteady fluctuations
• Employ ensemble/time-averaging to remove unsteadiness (this is
what is done in modeling turbulence)
• In CFD, steady-state methods are preferred
– Lower computational cost
– Easier to postprocess and analyze
• Many applications require resolution of transient flow:
– Aerodynamics (aircraft, land vehicles,etc.) – vortex shedding
– Rotating Machinery – rotor/stator interaction, stall, surge
– Multiphase Flows – free surfaces, bubble dynamics
– Deforming Domains – in-cylinder combustion, store separation
– Unsteady Heat Transfer – transient heating and cooling
– Many more
 Pseudo Transient

• Typically, compressible analyses are executed in

a transient or pseudo-transient fashion since
the problem is no longer elliptic: downstream
boundary conditions cannot be felt upstream in
a supersonic analysis.
– Pseudo Transient: Use of Inertial Relaxation.

improve multiphase convergency

 Specifying Well Posed Boundary Conditions
• Symmetry Plane?
• Symmetric geometry does not necessarily mean symmetric flow

– Example: The coanda effect. A jet entering at the center of a symmetrical

duct will tend to flow along one side above a certain Reynolds number
Coanda effect
not allowed

No Symmetry Plane Symmetry Plane

And this is so common in multiphase flow cases...

 Reference Values
• Domain Creation – Reference Pressure
General Options panel: Domain Models
– Reference Pressure
• Represents the absolute pressure datum from which all
relative pressures are measured
Pabs = Preference + Prelative
• Pressures specified at boundary and initial conditions are
relative to the Reference Pressure

• Used to avoid problems with round-off errors which occur

when the local pressure differences in a fluid are small
compared to the absolute pressure level
Pref
Pressure Pressure

Prel,max=100,001 Pa Prel,max=1 Pa
Prel,min=99,999 Pa Prel,min=-1 Pa

Pref

Ex. 1: Preference= 0 Pa Ex. 2: Preference= 100,000 Pa

PROBLEMS WITH THE CFD METHODS
• Numerical errors
– Dissipation causes a gradual decrease in the
amplitude of an changes and boundaries or the
magnitude of changes as it propagates away
from the source of change.

– Dispersion causes waves of different

wavelengths originating to incorrectly propagate.
Sample Problem
1-D Transport Equation:

F F
c 0
t x
n 1 n 1 n 1
Fi  Fi n
Fi F
c i 1
0
t x
Propagation Direction

i -1 i
Let’s revisit 1-D Vorticity Transport Equation:
F F
c 0
t x
 Fi  Fi   Fi 1  Fi   x  Fi   2 Fi  Fi  
    
x x  2x  2  x 2


Symmetric Part Numerical Viscosity

• If we replace these low order schemes with high order counter

parts, results dramatically improve.
 F Fi 1/ 2  Fi 1/ 2

x x
• Symmetric Schemes have no built-in numerical viscosity.
• Needed to be added explicitly.

Fi 1/ 2  Symmetric Part + Numerical viscosity

(Base Scheme) (Filter)

Second order
First order
Fourth order
Third order(MUSCL)
Sixth order
Fifth order (WENO)
Eighth order
 MUSCL

 A q R  q L 
1
Fi 1/ 2  Symmetric Part
2
This part is used to control This part is used to
dispersion and truncation errors control dissipation errors

2nd order:
1
Fi 1  Fi 
2
4th order:
1
 Fi 2  7Fi1  7Fi  Fi1 
12
6th order:
1
Fi3  8Fi2  37Fi1  37Fi  8Fi1  Fi2 
30
MUSCL
 A q R  q L 
1
Fi 1/ 2  Symmetric Part 2
LEFT RIGHT
STENCIL
qL qR STENCIL

3rd order MUSCL:

i-1 i+1 i+2
i
qL  qi  qi 1  qi   q i qi 1  i+1/2
1 1 Cell Face

3 6
qR  qi 1  q i  2 qi 1   qi 1  qi 
1 1
6 3
 qi  qi 1  qi   q i qi 1 
1 1
qL
 qi  qi 1  qi   q i qi 1 
1
3 1
6
1st order MUSCL: qL
31 6 1
qR  qi 1  q i  2 qi 1   qi 1  qi 
 q  q q   q  q 
1
6 1
3
qR i 1 i2 i 1 i 1 i
 33

Question?