CFD simulation of flashing phenomena

Due to its relevance for technical applications, experimental and theoretical investigation on flashing flows through nozzles and tubes has gained great attention. Most of them have focused on area-averaged quantities such as mass flow rate and pressure drop, while little attention has been paid to the internal flow structure and interfacial exchanging processes. More recently, computational fluid dynamics is frequently utilized to explore the phase distribution in the flashing flows. Various gas-liquid mixture or two-fluid models have been proposed in the literature. However, knowledge on the non-equilibrium effects, interphase transfer as well as bubble dynamics under different flashing conditions is still insufficient, and a general and precise definition of the problem in numerical simulations remains a challenge. A broad consensus on the numerical methods for flashing flows is not available. Guidelines for selecting an appropriate model are desirable, which is, however, not an easy task due to the complex physics and lack of insights. The talk is focused on the elucidation of important interfacial processes such as interfacial area density, interfacial heat transfer, bubble nucleation, coalescence and breakup as well as available modelling approaches. Numerical simulations for various flashing scenarios, i.e. converging-diverging flow, pipe-blowdown, natural circulation loop and pressure release transient, are presented. The influence of chosen numerical methods is discussed, especially the mixture model versus two-fluid ones and mono-disperse versus poly-disperse approaches. Progresses towards developing a general framework for modelling of complex gas-liquid flows are demonstrated.