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Simulation of a Bubble Column by Computational Fluid Dynamics and Population Balance Equation Using the Cell Average Method
Author(s) -
Li Qian,
Cheng Jingcai,
Yang Chao,
Mao Zai-Sha
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
chemical engineering and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1521-4125
pISSN - 0930-7516
DOI - 10.1002/ceat.201600565
Subject(s) - computational fluid dynamics , bubble , mechanics , rotational symmetry , population balance equation , population , probability density function , flow (mathematics) , mathematics , physics , statistical physics , statistics , demography , sociology
Abstract An axisymmetric computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation coupled with a population balance equation (PBE) has been applied in simulating the gas‐liquid flow in a bubble column with an in‐house code. The novel feature of this simulation is the application of the cell average method in a CFD‐PBE coupled model for the first time. The predicted results by this method are compared with those by the traditional fixed pivot method and experimental data. For both methods, the simulated results are in reasonable agreement with the reported experimentally measured values. However, the bubble size distributions determined by the cell average method are slightly better than those found by means of the fixed pivot method, i.e., the latter provides a smaller peak value and a wider bubble size distribution, and the probability density function of large bubbles is higher.