Hold-up within two-phase countercurrent pulsed columns via Eulerian simulations

The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been recently recognised to be a very powerful tool for analysis of contactor behaviour or for reactor design, both being of considerable interest to chemical engineers. In this paper, a model of turbulent two-fluid flow is applied to the simulation of hydrodynamics in discs and doughnuts pulsed columns. The task concerns a two-phase countercurrent turbulent non-stationary flow in a complex geometry with high volume fraction of the dispersed phase in some areas resulting in global hold-up up to 30%. The simulations have been performed using the CFD software ASTRID developed by Electricité de France (EDF). Concerning hydrodynamic parameters (continuous phase velocity, turbulent kinetic energy, hold-up), the results follow the tendencies of the experimental knowledge. The model validation is based on the mean hold-up determination upon a representative column compartment, which is compared to experimental data. The work demonstrates a possibility for prediction of the mean column hold-up using the Eulerian approach.