Study of the interfacial forces and turbulence models in a bubble column

Three-dimensional Eulerian simulations of gas–liquid flows in a cylindrical bubble column were performed in order to evaluate the flow pattern in the heterogeneous flow regime. Simulations were conducted numerically by the finite element method using a commercial CFX code (v.12.0) and an analysis of interfacial forces such as drag, lift and turbulent dispersion, as well as a comparison of k–ɛ and Reynolds Stress (RSM) turbulence models were performed. Different bubble sizes and two boundary conditions for the column exit were also verified. Gas velocities and holdup profiles were compared with experimental data. Results have shown that at the sparger region and without any simplification on the boundary condition the RSM model better represents the flow. At the fully developed region k–ɛ also showed good results.

► Interphase forces analyzes were performed in the heterogeneous regime.
► Different turbulence models were evaluated.
► A simple model was capable of predicting the bubbly flow in the homogeneous regime.
► Reynolds stress model was suitable for the flow prediction in the sparger region.