Numerical simulations of air–water cap-bubbly flows using two-group interfacial area transport equation

• Two-group interfacial area transport equation was implemented into a three-field two-fluid model in Fluent.
• Numerical model was developed for cap-bubbly flows in a narrow rectangular flow channel.
• Numerical simulations were performed for cap-bubbly flows with uniform void inlets and with central peaked void inlets.
• Code simulations showed a significant improve over the conventional two-fluid model.

Knowledge of cap-bubbly flows is of great interest due to its role in understanding of the flow regime transition from bubbly to slug or churn-turbulent flows. One of the key characteristics of such flows is the existence of bubbles in different sizes and shapes associated with their distinctive dynamic natures. This important feature is, however, generally not well captured by many available two-phase flow modeling approaches. In this study, a modified two-fluid model, namely a three-field, two-fluid model, is proposed. In this model, bubbles are categorized into two groups, i.e., spherical/distorted bubbles as Group-1 while cap/churn-turbulent bubbles as Group-2. A two-group interfacial area transport equation (IATE) is implemented to describe dynamic changes of interfacial structure in each bubble group, resulting from intra- and inter-group interactions and phase changes due to evaporation and condensation. Attention is also paid to appropriate constitutive relations of the interfacial transfers due to mechanical and thermal non-equilibrium between the different fields. The proposed three-field, two-fluid model is used to predict the phase distributions of adiabatic air–water flows in a confined rectangular duct. Good agreement between the simulation results from the proposed model and relevant experimental data indicates that the proposed model is promising as an improved computational tool for two-phase cap-bubbly flow simulations in rectangular flow ducts.