An additional layer has been added into the phase system hierarchy which
facilitates the application of phase transfer modelling. These are
models which exchange mass between phases without the thermal coupling
that would be required to represent phase change. They can be thought of
as representation changes; e.g., between two phases representing
different droplet sizes of the same physical fluid.
To facilitate this, the heat transfer phase systems have been modified
and renamed and now both support mass transfer. The two sided version
is only required for derivations which support phase change.
The following changes to case settings have been made:
- The simplest instantiated phase systems have been renamed to
basicTwoPhaseSystem and basicMultiphaseSystem. The
heatAndMomentumTransfer*System entries in constant/phaseProperties files
will need updating accordingly.
- A phaseTransfer sub-model entry will be required in the
constant/phaseProperties file. This can be an empty list.
- The massTransfer switch in thermal phase change cases has been renamed
phaseTransfer, so as not to be confused with the mass transfer models
used by interface composition cases.
This work was supported by Georg Skillas and Zhen Li, at Evonik
Sub-model blending should be set such that the sum of all the blending
coefficients equals one. If there are three models specified for a phase
pair (e.g., (air in water), (water in air) and (air and water)), then
the sum-to-one constraint is guaranteed by the blending functions.
Frequently, however, the symmetric model ((air and water) in this
example) is omitted. In that case, the blending coefficients should be
selected so that the sum of just the two non-symmetric coefficients
equal one.
In the case of linear blending, this means setting the minimum partially
continuous alpha to one-minus the fully continuous value of the opposite
phase. For example:
blending
{
default
{
type linear;
minFullyContinuousAlpha.air 0.7;
minPartlyContinuousAlpha.air 0.3;
minFullyContinuousAlpha.water 0.7;
minPartlyContinuousAlpha.water 0.3;
}
}
The reactingTwoPhaseEulerFoam and reactingMultiPhaseEulerFoam tutorials
have been modified to adhere to this principle.
The initial set of cases in the test directory are aimed at testing the
reactingEulerFoam populationBalance functionality.
Patch contributed by Institute of Fluid Dynamics, Helmholtz-Zentrum
Dresden - Rossendorf (HZDR) and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd.
Integrated with the "tutorials" functionality by CFD Direct Ltd.
Now if a <field> file does not exist first the compressed <field>.gz file is
searched for and if that also does not exist the <field>.orig file is searched
for.
This simplifies case setup and run scripts as now setField for example can read
the <field>.orig file directly and generate the <field> file from it which is
then read by the solver. Additionally the cleanCase function used by
foamCleanCase and the Allclean scripts automatically removed <field> files if
there is a corresponding <field>.orig file. So now there is no need for the
Allrun scripts to copy <field>.orig files into <field> or for the Allclean
scripts to explicitly remove them.
This patch enables the reactingEulerFoam solvers to simulate polydisperse flow
situations, i.e. flows where the disperse phase is subject to a size
distribution.
The newly added populationBalanceModel class solves the integro-partial
differential population balance equation (PBE) by means of a class method, also
called discrete or sectional method. This approach is based on discretizing the
PBE over its internal coordinate, the particle volume. This yields a set of
transport equations for the number concentration of particles in classes with a
different representative size. These are coupled through their source-terms and
solved in a segregated manner. The implementation is done in a way, that the
total particle number and mass is preserved for coalescence, breakup and drift
(i.e. isothermal growth or phase change) processes, irrespective of the chosen
discretization over the internal coordinate.
A population balance can be split over multiple velocity (temperature) fields,
using the capability of reactingMultiphaseEulerFoam to solve for n momentum
(energy) equations. To a certain degree, this takes into account the dependency
of heat- and momentum transfer on the disperse phase diameter. It is also possible
to define multiple population balances, e.g. bubbles and droplets simultaneously.
The functionality can be switched on by choosing the appropriate phaseSystem
type, e.g. populationBalanceMultiphaseSystem and the newly added diameterModel
class called velocityGroup. To illustrate the use of the functionality, a
bubbleColumnPolydisperse tutorial was added for reactingTwoPhaseEulerFoam and
reactingMultiphaseEulerFoam.
Furthermore, a reactingEulerFoam-specific functionObject called sizeDistribution
was added to allow post-Processing of the size distribution, e.g. to obtain the
number density function in a specific region.
Patch contributed by Institute of Fluid Dynamics, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden - Rossendorf
(HZDR) and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd.