Numerical simulation of secondary flow in pneumatic conveying of solid particles in a horizontal circular pipe

• Autor(a) principal: Laín,S.
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Sommerfeld,M., Quintero,B.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Brazilian Journal of Chemical Engineering
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-66322009000300014
• topic: Secondary flow; Pneumatic conveying; Four-way coupling; Horizontal pipe; Turbulence

Under certain conditions, a fully developed turbulent flow in a straight pipe may show a secondary flow; for instance, when non-circular cross-section or non-uniform wall roughness around the perimeter of the duct are considered. In horizontal pipe particle-laden gas flow, the non-uniform forcing of the flow by the solids entrained in the gas core may also drive a secondary flow, even with uniform wall roughness along the circumferential direction. In this paper, the effects of wall roughness, particle size and particle mass loading ratio on the secondary flow developing in a horizontal pipe of circular cross-section under turbulent conditions are analysed. The computations are based on the Euler-Lagrange approach accounting for wall roughness and inter-particle collisions (i.e., four-way coupling). In the case of inertial particles, if inter-particle collisions are disregarded, the secondary flow consists of two recirculation cells with an upward flow near the vertical (symmetry) axis and a downward flow close to the walls. On the other hand, when inter-particle collisions are accounted for, the pattern depends on the particle concentration profile: with relatively smooth walls (low roughness), two recirculation cells are found, but with rough walls four recirculation cells are generated. For smaller particles, a transition between two and four recirculation cells in the secondary flow is observed by increasing the mass loading ratio.