CFD Simulation of Gas–Liquid Performance in Two Direction Vapour Horn

The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation package was used to investigate gas–liquid dynamic performance of two direction vapour horn, such as gas distribution, pressure drop and entrainment rate. The performance of two direction vapour horn in a laboratorial-scale column (1 m diameter) was simulated by CFD to confirm the validity of this method and provide the detailed hydraulics hardly found by experiment. Euler–Lagrangian multiphase model was chosen to capture the two-phase flow characteristics, and k–∈ model and stochastic tracking (random walk) model were applied to simulate turbulence of gas flow and dispersion of liquid particles respectively. The empirical correlation for momentum interaction of two-phase flow was incorporated into the model to provide the closure relation, and the model was solved by FLUENT. The simulation results agreed well with the experimental data. To overcome amplification effect of experimental results to commercial design, the CFD model proposed was used to study the effect of some factors on performance of a commercial-scale two direction vapour horn in a 7.4 m internal diameter column, such as number and radial slope angles of flow vanes and spacing between inside vertical cylindrical wall and tower wall. Designer should find some valuable information in this paper when they design two direction vapour horn in large diameter column.