An investigation of particulate flow behaviour and sedimentation in curved channel using Euler-Euler approach

Abstract

Fluid flow through curved duct has been extensively studied for a wide range of applications with a key base of heat transfer and mixing enhancement. Such motivation has provided a fairly comprehensive knowledge of physic and numerical modelling addressing intrinsic vortices structure promoting mixing and momentum transfer. This study extends this area to a multi-phase flow case study where liquid-granular phase interaction stands for a commonly seen scenario of bed erosion in a duct flow. Advances in numerical modelling and a wide range of sub-models, specified for momentum exchange, turbulence structure and granular phase behaviour, are examined to achieve a fairly valid model. An Eulerian model is used alongside with k-e turbulence model and granular phase is modelled using a gas dynamic analogy. Results demonstrate a pivotal quantitative and qualitative role of secondary flow in curved duct where dimensionless helicity function is used for study of fluid flow structure associated with boundary reshaping and phase rearrangement.