Soutenance de thèse : Longkai GUO

Numerical investigation of Taylor bubble and development of a phase change model

Doctorant : Longkai GUO

Laboratoire INSA : CETHIL

Ecole doctorale :  ED162 : Mécanique, Énergétique, Génie Civil, Acoustique (MEGA)

The motion of a nitrogen Taylor bubble in glycerol-water mixed solutions rising through different types of expansions and contractions is investigated by a numerical approach. The CFD procedure is based on an open-source solver Basilisk, which adopts the volume- of-fluid (VOF) method to capture the gas-liquid interface. The results of sudden expansions/contractions are compared with experimental results. The results show that the simulations are in good agreement with experiments. The bubble velocity increases in sudden expansions and decreases in sudden contractions. The bubble break-up pattern is observed in sudden expansions with large expansion ratios, and a bubble blocking pattern is found in sudden contractions with small contraction ratios. In addition, the wall shear stress, the liquid film thickness, and pressure in the simulations are studied to understand the hydrodynamics of the Taylor bubble rising through expansions/contractions. The transient process of the Taylor bubble passing through sudden expansion/contraction is further analyzed for three different singularities: gradual, parabolic convex and parabolic concave. A unique feature in parabolic concave contraction is that the Taylor bubble passes through the contraction even for small contraction ratios. Moreover, a phase change model is developed in the Basilisk solver. In order to use the existed geometric VOF method in Basilisk, a general two-step geometric VOF method is implemented. Mass flux is calculated not in the interfacial cells but transferred to the neighboring cells around the interface. The saturated temperature boundary condition is imposed at the interface by a ghost cell method. The phase change model is validated by droplet evaporation with a constant mass transfer rate, the one- dimensional Stefan problem, the sucking interface problem, and a planar film boiling case. The results show good agreement with analytical solutions or correlations.