Simulation of Two-Phase Flow in a Heat Exchanger Distributor Application
In this work, computations of the air/water flow in a distributor were completed with the FLUENT two-phase VOF model and compared to experiments. The parameters of interest concerned the ratio between the deflected mass flow rate of the water phase to the mass flow rate of the water phase at the inlet called the deflection ratio as well as the recreation of the flow pattern of the different two-phase flows which involved slug, slug/annular and annular flows. Due to the time-consuming calculations, only 9 out of 27 experimental tests were simulated. In conclusion, it can be stated that it is possible, given the right conditions, to perform comparatively accurate simulations concerning two-phase flows in pipe applications with the FLUENT two-phase VOF model.