Numerical Simulation of Single Bubble Moving in Stagnant Solid-Liquid Mixture Pool Using Finite Volume Particle Method

Three-phase flow formed in a disrupted core of nuclear reactors is one of the key phenomena to be simulated in reactor safety analysis. Particle-based simulation could be a powerful CFD tool to understand and clarify local thermal-hydraulic behaviors involved in such three-phase flows. In the present study, to develop a computational framework for three-phase flow simulations, a single bubble moving in a stagnant solid particle-liquid mixture pool was simulated using the finite volume particle (FVP) method. The simulations were carried out in a two dimensional system. The bubble shape change and the bubble rise velocity were compared with the newly performed experiments, which used solid particulate glasses of 0.9 mm in diameter, liquid silicone and air. The two-phase flow simulation of a single bubble rising in a stagnant liquid pool reproduced measured bubble shape and bubble rise velocity reasonably. On the other hand, the bubble rise velocity in a stagnant particle-liquid mixture pool was overestimated in comparison with the measurement. This result suggests that particle-particle and particle-fluid interactions would have dominant influence on bubble motion behavior in the particle-liquid mixture pool under the present multiphase conditions. To evaluate such interactions in the simulations, the particle-particle interactions were modeled by the distinct element method (DEM), while two models were applied to represent particle-fluid interactions. One is the theoretical model for apparent viscosity of particle-liquid mixture, which describes the viscosity increase of liquid mixed with solids based on the Frankel-Acrivos equation. The other is the drag force model for solid-fluid interactions. In the present study, we took the Gidaspow drag correlation, which is a combination of the Ergun equation and Wen-Yu equation. A comparison of both the transient bubble shape and bubble rise velocity between the results of experiment and simulation demonstrates that the present computational framework based on the FVP method and solid-phase interaction models is useful for numerical simulations of a single bubble moving in a stagnant solid particle-liquid mixture pool.