Turbulent pipe flow with spherical particles
Drag as a function of particle size and volume fraction
Martin Leskovec (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
Sagar Zade (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
Mehdi Niazi (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
Pedro Costa (TU Delft - Energy Technology, University of Iceland)
Fredrik Lundell (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Wallenberg Wood Science Center)
Luca Brandt (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Politecnico di Torino)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
Suspensions of finite-size solid particles in a turbulent pipe flow are found in many industrial and technical flows. Due to the ample parameter space consisting of particle size, concentration, density and Reynolds number, a complete picture of the particle–fluid interaction is still lacking. Pressure drop predictions are often made using viscosity models only considering the bulk solid volume fraction. For the case of turbulent pipe flow laden with neutrally buoyant spherical particles, we investigate the pressure drop and overall drag (friction factor), fluid velocity and particle distribution in the pipe. We use a combination of experimental (MRV) and numerical (DNS) techniques and a continuum flow model. We find that the particle size and the bulk flow rate influence the mean fluid velocity, velocity fluctuations and the particle distribution in the pipe for low flow rates. However, the effects of the added solid particles diminish as the flow rate increases. We created a master curve for drag change compared to single-phase flow for the particle-laden cases. This curve can be used to achieve more accurate friction factor predictions than the traditional modified viscosity approach that does not account for particle size.