Numerical Modeling of Multi-phase Flows through Valves

SlurryFlo阀门公司是一家100%加拿大拥有的公司，在加拿大的工程和制造领域工作。SlurryFlo阀门公司为各种流量条件设计定制工程控制阀，适用于矿物加工，天然气和石油，发电部门和许多其他领域的各种工业应用。随着对新型、更高效阀门的需求不断增加，公司工程团队已经注意到需要对涉及大型控制阀的几种关键流动建模场景进行更先进的计算研究。设计新型大型阀门（bbb30英寸）的关键问题之一是通过阀门的流体湍流强度的增加以及由于经过阀门的下游再循环区而发生的相分离或分离。因此，湍流和相偏析显著影响所谓的阀门流量系数，它在阀门设计和阀门生产中所用材料的选择中起着支配作用。在这种观点下，考虑到湍流影响的阀门流量系数的准确预测对于大型阀门的优化设计是必要的。这种计算将有助于公司在操作和生产方面使阀门更可靠，更有效。本文将采用三维计算流体动力学模型（3D CFD）直接计算不同流量条件下阀门的流量系数。本工作的创新之处在于采用商业求解器ANSYS-Fluent中基于3D cfd的模型（包括一组子模型和数值方案）来预测通过不同尺寸阀门的单相和多相湍流的流量系数。通过阀门的单相和多相流建模的预期结果将大大有助于提高工程阀门在矿物加工、天然气和石油以及加拿大许多其他领域的各种工业应用中的可靠性和效率。

SlurryFlo Valve Corp. is a 100% Canadian owned company working in the field of engineering andmanufacturing across Canada. SlurryFlo Valve Corp. designs custom-engineered control valves for variousflow conditions applied to a variety of industrial applications in the mineral processing, gas and petroleum, andpower generation sectors and many other fields. With increasing demand for new, more effective valves, thecompany engineering group has observed a need to perform more advanced computational research on severalcritical flow modeling scenarios involving large-scale control valves. One of the critical issues in designingnew large-scale valves (>30 inches) is an increase in the turbulence intensity of the flow passing through thevalve and the occurrence of phase separation or segregation due to downstream recirculation zones past thevalve. As a result, the turbulence and phase segregation significantly influence the so-called valve flowcoefficient, which plays the governing role in valve design and in the selection of materials used in valveproduction. In this view, an accurate prediction of the valve flow coefficient taking into account the impact ofturbulence is necessary for an optimal design of large scale valves. Calculations of this kind will help thecompany to make valves more reliable and more effective in terms of operation and production. In this workthe flow coefficient of valves will be calculated directly using three-dimensional computational fluid dynamicmodels (3D CFD) under different flow conditions.The innovative nature of this work lies in an adoptation of 3D CFD-based models (including a set ofsubmodels and numerical schemes) available in the commercial solver ANSYS-Fluent to predict the flowcoefficient of valves for single-phase and multiphase turbulent flows through valves of different sizes. Theexpected outcome from modeling single-phase and multi-phase flows through a valve will contributesignificantly to enhancing the reliability and efficiency of engineered valves in a variety of industrialapplications in mineral processing, gas and petroleum and many other fields across Canada.