scholarly journals Dense granular flow rheology in turbulent bedload transport

2016 ◽  
Vol 804 ◽  
pp. 490-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphael Maurin ◽  
Julien Chauchat ◽  
Philippe Frey

The local granular rheology is investigated numerically in turbulent bedload transport. Considering spherical particles, steady uniform configurations are simulated using a coupled fluid–discrete-element model. The stress tensor is computed as a function of the depth for a series of simulations varying the Shields number, the specific density and the particle diameter. The results are analysed in the framework of the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}(I)$ rheology and exhibit a collapse of both the shear to normal stress ratio and the solid volume fraction over a wide range of inertial numbers. Contrary to expectations, the effect of the interstitial fluid on the granular rheology is shown to be negligible, supporting recent work suggesting the absence of a clear transition between the free-fall and turbulent regimes. In addition, data collapse is observed up to unexpectedly high inertial numbers $I\sim 2$, challenging the existing conceptions and parametrisation of the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}(I)$ rheology. Focusing upon bedload transport modelling, the results are pragmatically analysed in the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}(I)$ framework in order to propose a granular rheology for bedload transport. The proposed rheology is tested using a 1D volume-averaged two-phase continuous model, and is shown to accurately reproduce the dense granular flow profiles and the sediment transport rate over a wide range of Shields numbers. The present contribution represents a step in the upscaling process from particle-scale simulations towards large-scale applications involving complex flow geometry.

2021 ◽  
Vol 933 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kee Onn Fong ◽  
Filippo Coletti

In collisional gas–solid flows, dense particle clusters are often observed that greatly affect the transport properties of the mixture. The characterisation and prediction of this phenomenon are challenging due to limited optical access, the wide range of scales involved and the interplay of different mechanisms. Here, we consider a laboratory setup in which particles fall against upward-moving air in a square vertical duct: a classic configuration in riser reactors. The use of non-cohesive, monodispersed, spherical particles and the ability to independently vary the solid volume fraction ( $\varPhi _V = 0.1\,\% - 0.8\,\%$ ) and the bulk airflow Reynolds number ( $Re_{bulk} = 300 - 1200$ ) allows us to isolate key elements of the multiphase dynamics, providing the first laboratory observation of cluster-induced turbulence. Above a threshold $\varPhi _V$ , the system exhibits intense fluctuations of concentration and velocity, as measured by high-speed imaging via a backlighting technique which returns optically depth-averaged fields. The space–time autocorrelations reveal dense and persistent mesoscale structures falling faster than the surrounding particles and trailing long wakes. These are shown to be the statistical footprints of visually observed clusters, mostly found in the vicinity of the walls. They are identified via a percolation analysis, tracked in time, and characterised in terms of size, shape, location and velocity. Larger clusters are denser, longer-lived and have greater descent velocity. At the present particle Stokes number, the threshold $\varPhi _V \sim 0.5$ % (largely independent from $Re_{bulk}$ ) is consistent with the view that clusters appear when the typical interval between successive collisions is shorter than the particle response time.


Author(s):  
Wim-Paul Breugem ◽  
Vincent van Dijk ◽  
René Delfos

A computationally efficient Immersed Boundary Method (IBM) based on penalized direct forcing was employed to determine the permeability of a real porous medium. The porous medium was composed of about 9000 glass beads with an average particle diameter of 1.93 mm and a porosity of 0.367. The forcing of the IBM depends on the local solid volume fraction within a computational grid cell. The latter could be obtained from a high-resolution X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) scan of the packing. An experimental facility was built to determine the permeability of the packing experimentally. Numerical simulations were performed for the same packing based on the data from the CT scan. For a scan resolution of 0.1 mm the numerical value for the permeability was nearly 70% larger than the experimental value. An error analysis indicated that the scan resolution of 0.1 mm was too coarse for this packing.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nouf AlJabri ◽  
Nan Shi

Abstract Nanoemulsions (NEs) are kinetically stable emulsions with droplet size on the order of 100 nm. Many unique properties of NEs, such as stability and rheology, have attracted considerable attention in the oil industry. Here, we review applications and studies of NEs for major upstream operations, highlighting useful properties of NEs, synthesis to render these properties, and techniques to characterize them. We identify specific challenges associated with large-scale applications of NEs and directions for future studies. We first summarize useful and unique properties of NEs, mostly arising from the small droplet size. Then, we compare different methods to prepare NEs based on the magnitude of input energy, i.e., low-energy and high-energy methods. In addition, we review techniques to characterize properties of NEs, such as droplet size, volume fraction of the dispersed phase, and viscosity. Furthermore, we discuss specific applications of NEs in four areas of upstream operations, i.e., enhanced oil recovery, drilling/completion, flow assurance, and stimulation. Finally, we identify challenges to economically tailor NEs with desired properties for large-scale upstream applications and propose possible solutions to some of these challenges. NEs are kinetically stable due to their small droplet size (submicron to 100 nm). Within this size range, the rate of major destabilizing mechanisms, such as coalescence, flocculation, and Ostwald ripening, is considerably slowed down. In addition, small droplet size yields large surface-to-volume ratio, optical transparency, high diffusivity, and controllable rheology. Similar to applications in other fields (food industry, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, etc.), the oil and gas industry can also benefit from these useful properties of NEs. Proposed functions of NEs include delivering chemicals, conditioning wellbore/reservoir conditions, and improve chemical compatibility. Therefore, we envision NEs as a versatile technology that can be applied in a variety of upstream operations. Upstream operations often target a wide range of physical and chemical conditions and are operated at different time scales. More importantly, these operations typically consume a large amount of materials. These facts not only suggest efforts to rationally engineer properties of NEs in upstream applications, but also manifest the importance to economically optimize such efforts for large-scale operations. We summarize studies and applications of NEs in upstream operations in the oil and gas industry. We review useful properties of NEs that benefit upstream applications as well as techniques to synthesize and characterize NEs. More importantly, we identify challenges and opportunities in engineering NEs for large-scale operations in different upstream applications. This work not only focuses on scientific aspects of synthesizing NEs with desired properties but also emphasizes engineering and economic consideration that is important in the oil industry.


2019 ◽  
Vol 874 ◽  
pp. 926-951 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. G. Schaeffer ◽  
T. Barker ◽  
D. Tsuji ◽  
P. Gremaud ◽  
M. Shearer ◽  
...  

Granular flows occur in a wide range of situations of practical interest to industry, in our natural environment and in our everyday lives. This paper focuses on granular flow in the so-called inertial regime, when the rheology is independent of the very large particle stiffness. Such flows have been modelled with the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}(I),\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}(I)$-rheology, which postulates that the bulk friction coefficient $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}$ (i.e. the ratio of the shear stress to the pressure) and the solids volume fraction $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$ are functions of the inertial number $I$ only. Although the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}(I),\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}(I)$-rheology has been validated in steady state against both experiments and discrete particle simulations in several different geometries, it has recently been shown that this theory is mathematically ill-posed in time-dependent problems. As a direct result, computations using this rheology may blow up exponentially, with a growth rate that tends to infinity as the discretization length tends to zero, as explicitly demonstrated in this paper for the first time. Such catastrophic instability due to ill-posedness is a common issue when developing new mathematical models and implies that either some important physics is missing or the model has not been properly formulated. In this paper an alternative to the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}(I),\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}(I)$-rheology that does not suffer from such defects is proposed. In the framework of compressible $I$-dependent rheology (CIDR), new constitutive laws for the inertial regime are introduced; these match the well-established $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}(I)$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}(I)$ relations in the steady-state limit and at the same time are well-posed for all deformations and all packing densities. Time-dependent numerical solutions of the resultant equations are performed to demonstrate that the new inertial CIDR model leads to numerical convergence towards physically realistic solutions that are supported by discrete element method simulations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 155892501989388
Author(s):  
JiaWei Zhou ◽  
Liang Zhang ◽  
Bo Zhang ◽  
Wei Gong

The fibrous media composed of elliptical fibers is widely used owing to the high filtration efficiency. However, there are few studies on the arrangement of non-circular fibers, although the single non-circular fiber has been clearly investigated. In this article, two-dimensional numerical geometries of fibrous media with different elliptical fiber arrangements, namely, random distribution structure, dense–sparse structure, and bimodal structure, are developed for studying filtration performance. The results show that the large aspect ratio and solid volume fraction represent low particle penetration. When the particle diameter ( Dp) is small, the quality factor of bimodal structure is higher than the dense–sparse structure, especially at Dp = 50 nm. For the large Dp, the opposite is true. Meanwhile, reducing fiber diameter ( Df) is more significant than increasing solid volume fraction in terms of improving penetration. As for dense–sparse structure, replacing the elliptical fibers in sparse layers with circular fibers can comprehensively improve the quality factor of fibrous media. However, if the replacement between elliptical fiber and circular fiber occurs in dense layer, it will result in high quality factor at Dp ⩽ 500 nm, while low quality factor at Dp > 500 nm.


1996 ◽  
Vol 118 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Ditchfield ◽  
W. L. Olbricht

Experimental results are reported for the low Reynolds number flow of a suspension of spherical particles through a divergent capillary bifurcation consisting of a straight tube of circular cross-section that splits to form two tubes of equal diameter. The partitioning of particles between the downstream branches of the bifurcation is measured as a function of the partitioning of total volume (particles + suspending fluid) between the branches. Two bifurcation geometries are examined: a symmetric Y-shaped bifurcation and a nonsymmetric T-shaped bifurcation. This experiment focuses on the role of hydrodynamic interactions between particles on the partitioning of particles at the bifurcation. The particle diameter, made dimensionless with respect to the diameter of the branch tubes, ranges from 0.4 to 0.8. Results show that hydrodynamic interactions among the particles are significant at the bifurcation, even for conditions where interactions are unimportant in the straight branches away from the bifurcation. As a result of hydrodynamic interactions among particles at the bifurcation, the partitioning of particles between the branches is affected for particle volume fractions as small as 2 percent. The experimental results show that the effect of particle volume fraction is to diminish the inhomogeneity of particle partitioning at the bifurcation. However, the magnitude of this effect depends strongly on the overall shape of the bifurcation geometry, and, in particular on the angles between the branches.


2010 ◽  
Vol 650 ◽  
pp. 5-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRANCESCO LUCCI ◽  
ANTONINO FERRANTE ◽  
SAID ELGHOBASHI

This study investigates the two-way coupling effects of finite-size solid spherical particles on decaying isotropic turbulence using direct numerical simulation with an immersed boundary method. We fully resolve all the relevant scales of turbulence around freely moving particles of the Taylor length-scale size, 1.2≤d/λ≤2.6. The particle diameter and Stokes number in terms of Kolmogorov length- and time scales are 16≤d/η≤35 and 38≤τp/τk≤178, respectively, at the time the particles are released in the flow. The particles mass fraction range is 0.026≤φm≤1.0, corresponding to a volume fraction of 0.01≤φv≤0.1 and density ratio of 2.56≤ρp/ρf≤10. The maximum number of dispersed particles is 6400 for φv=0.1. The typical particle Reynolds number is of O(10). The effects of the particles on the temporal development of turbulence kinetic energy E(t), its dissipation rate (t), its two-way coupling rate of change Ψp(t) and frequency spectra E(ω) are discussed.In contrast to particles with d < η, the effect of the particles in this study, with d > η, is that E(t) is always smaller than that of the single-phase flow. In addition, Ψp(t) is always positive for particles with d > η, whereas it can be positive or negative for particles with d < η.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
José C. F. Pereira ◽  
José M. C. Pereira ◽  
André L. A. Leite ◽  
Duarte M. S. Albuquerque

Large eddy simulation of the wind surface layer above and within vegetation was conducted in the presence of an idealised forest fire by using an equivalent volumetric heat source. Firebrand’s particles are represented as spherical particles with a wide range of sizes, which were located into the combustion volume in a random fashion and are convected in the ascending plume as Lagrangian points. The thermally thin particles undergo drag relative to the flow and moisture loss as they are dried and pyrolysis, char-combustion, and mass loss as they burn. The particle momentum, heat and mass transfer, and combustion governing equations were computed along particle trajectories in the unsteady 3D wind field until their deposition on the ground. The spotting distances are compared with the maximum spotting distance obtained with Albini model for several idealised line grass or torching trees fires scenarios. The prediction of the particle maximum spotting distance for a 2000 kW/m short grass fire compared satisfactorily with results from Albini model and underpredicted by 40% the results for a high intensity 50000 kW/m fire. For the cases of single and four torching trees the model predicts the maximum distances consistently but for slightly different particle diameter.


2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianming Yang ◽  
Frederick Stern

In recent years, the immersed boundary method has been well received as an effective approach for the fully resolved simulations of particulate flows. Most immersed boundary approaches for numerical studies of particulate flows in the literature were based on various discrete delta functions for information transfer between the Lagrangian elements of an immersed object and the underlying Eulerian grid. These approaches have some inherent limitations that restrict their wider applications. In this paper, a sharp interface direct forcing immersed boundary approach based on the method proposed by Yang and Stern (Yang and Stern, 2012, “A Simple and Efficient Direct Forcing Immersed Boundary Framework for Fluid-Structure Interactions,” J. Comput. Phys., 231(15), pp. 5029–5061) is given for the fully resolved simulations of particulate flows. This method uses a discrete forcing approach and maintains a sharp profile of the fluid-solid interface. It is not limited to low Reynolds number flows and the immersed boundary discretization can be arbitrary or totally eliminated for particles with analytical shapes. In addition, it is not required to calculate the solid volume fraction in low density ratio problems. A strong coupling scheme is employed for the fluid-solid interaction without including the fluid solver in the predictor-corrector iterative loop. The overall algorithm is highly efficient and very attractive for simulating particulate flows with a wide range of density ratios on relatively coarse grids. Several cases are examined and the results are compared with reference data to demonstrate the simplicity and robustness of our method in particulate flow simulations. These cases include settling and buoyant particles and the interaction of two settling particles showing the kissing-drafting-tumbling phenomenon. Systematic verification studies show that our method is of second-order accuracy on very coarse grids and approaches fourth-order accuracy on finer grids.


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