Large Eddy Simulation of Slurry Erosion in Submerged Impinging Jets
Abstract Submerged impingement jets are widely used in erosion/corrosion investigation as it is easy to control standoff distance as well as jet angle and flow velocities in experiments. In addition to experiments, typically Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique has been used to simulate slurry flow in this geometry to investigate erosion process and develop and verify erosion equations. This is done by solving Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations with turbulence models, time-averaged fluid flow is revealed, and thus time-averaged erosion rate can be obtained by tracking particles in the fluid flow field. The current work shows that this seemingly simple flow displays unsteady flow structures in the stagnation zone of the flow field and its effects on erosion process was unclear. In this study, Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is used to simulate unsteady fluid flow in different impingement jets in Eulerian scheme. Then particles are injected randomly in the surface and tracked transiently to simulate unsteady erosion process in Lagrangian scheme. Finally, an erosion equation is used to calculate solid particle erosion rates. The LES Eulerian-Lagrangian erosion modeling are further validated by experimental fluid velocities and erosion profile measured before. It was found the accuracy of erosion prediction of small particles can be improved and unsteady properties can be well resolved by using this method.