Abstract

COLMAN, Alejandro et al. The effect of the choice of turbulence model on the simulation of fluid flow on a centrifugal separatorInfluencia del modelo de turbulencia en la simulación de un separador centrífugo. Rev. Téc. Ing. Univ. Zulia [online]. 2006, vol.29, n.2, pp.127-133. ISSN 0254-0770.

The selection of an appropriate turbulence model is a critical step in the set up of a fluid flow simulation, as it is expected that this choice will have a significant impact on the validity of the results. In this work, we study the impact of the choice of a turbulence model, as part of a study of the behavior of air-water two-phase flow in a cylindrical cyclone separator using the finite volume method(FVM).The study was conducted with a commercial CFD code to simulate single-phase flow of water in the cyclone separator, using the standard Kappa-Epsilon (κ-ε), Renormalization-Group Kappa-Epsilon (RNG) and Reynolds Stress (RS) models with both low-order and high-order interpolation. Simulation results were compared with experimental data of angular velocities and flow rates at different heights in the separator. The results show that the RNG and RS models with high order interpolation agree satisfactorily with the experimental data, while κ-ε and low-order RNG model are able to capture the trends of the experimental data but fail to match the observed values.

Keywords : Turbulence models; centrifugal separator; kappa-epsilon model; Renormalization Group; Reynolds stress.