Experimente und CFD Simulationen zu geschichteten Strömungen in horizontalen Kanälen

Slug flow is potentially hazardous to the structure of the system due to the strong oscillating pressure levels formed behind the liquid slugs. It is usually characterized by an acceleration of the gaseous phase and by the transition of fast liquid slugs, which carry out a significant amount of liquid with high kinetic energy. For the experimental investigation of air/water flows, a horizontal channel with rectangular cross-section was build at Forschungszentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (FZD). Experimental data were used to check the feasibility to predict the slugging phenomenon with the existing multiphase flow models build in ANSYS CFX. Further it is of interest to prove the understanding of the general fluid dynamic mechanism leading to slug flow and to identify the critical parameters affecting the main slug flow parameters (like e.g. slug length, frequency and propagation velocity; pressure drop).
For free surface simulations, the inhomogeneous multiphase model was used, where the gaseous and liquid phases can be partially mixed in certain areas of the flow domain. In this case the local phase demixing after a gas entrainment is controlled by buoyancy and interphase drag and is not hindered by the phase interface separating the two fluids. A further decision has to be made regarding the applied fluid morphology and interphase drag law for the multiphase flow. The fluid-dependent shear stress transport (SST) turbulence models were selected for each phase. Damping of turbulent diffusion at the interface has been considered. The k-ω based SST model accounts for the transport of the turbulent shear stress and gives highly accurate predictions of the onset and the amount of flow separation under adverse pressure gradients. The tail of the calculated slug and the flow behind it is in good agreement with the experiment. The entrainment of small bubbles in front of the slug could not be observed in the calculation. However, the front wave rolls over and breaks. It is created due to the high air velocity. In contrast to the measurement, the slug period is increasing with the time in the calculation. This could be a result of different amount of water in the channel at the beginning of experiment and CFD simulation. While in the simulation, the liquid phase covers 78% of the channel, it represents about 70% at the beginning of the experiment. Furthermore, in the experiment, this value is also reduced by a first slug which carries a significant amount of water out of the channel. This first slug could not be simulated. The behavior of slug propagation at the experimental setup was qualitatively reproduced, while quantitative deviations require a continuation of the work.
As some uncertainties were noticed at the inlet of this channel, the HAWAC (Horizontal Air/Water Channel) with well defined inlet boundary conditions dedicated to co-current flows was built. A picture sequence recorded during slug flow was compared with the equivalent CFD simulation made with the code ANSYS CFX. The two-fluid model was applied with a special free surface treatment. Due to an interfacial momentum transfer, it was possible to generate slugs based on instabilities. The behaviour of slug generation and propagation at the experimental setup was qualitatively reproduced, while deviations require a continuation of the work. The creation of small instabilities due to pressure surge or an increase of interfacial momentum should be analysed in the future. Furthermore, experiments like pressure and velocity measurements are planned and will allow quantitative comparisons, also at other superficial velocities.