Numerical Simulation of Gas-Liquid Two Phase Flow in the Annular Gap Scrubber
The pressure drop characteristics of the annular gap scrubber of the blast furnace gas are key elements for inner furnace pressure control. In the annular gap scrubber, there exists complicated interactions between three-dimensional compressible flow with two phase flow and heat transfer between gas and water particle. In the paper, the gas-liquid two-phase flow and heat transfer process in the annular gap scrubber are analyzed and the corresponding physical and mathematical models are proposed. The computational model is discretized with hybrid meshes into multi-block zones, and solved numerically by employing the Fluent solver. The motion of the water particles in the annular gap scrubber is simulated by the Lagrangian discrete phase model, meanwhile the interaction between two phases is taken into consideration. The numerical computations of the two-phase flow and heat transfer in the annular gap scrubber are performed under different mass flow rates, displacements of AGE (Annual Gap Element), and water-gas ratios. Based on the computed results under different conditions, the flow and pressure drop characteristics of the annular gap scrubber are illustrated and analyzed. The results can be used as the basis for the pressure control policy of the blast furnace.