RESEARCH ARTICLE
Numerical investigation of drop formation in a co‐current
liquid–liquid flow for ice slurry making system
Tiantian Zhang
1
| Yi Xin
1
| Fan Geng
1
| Dongtai Han
1
| Zhengbiao Peng
2
| Hongli Chai
1
|
Gang Luo
1
| Haiyan Ding
3
1
School of Electrical and Power
Engineering, China University of Mining
and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China
2
Priority Research Centre for Frontier
Energy Technologies and Utilization, The
University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW
2308, Australia
3
Department of Architecture and Art,
Kunshan Dengyun College of Science and
Technology, Kunshan 215300, China
Correspondence
Fan Geng and Dongtai Han, School of
Electrical and Power Engineering, China
University of Mining and Technology,
Xuzhou 221116, China.
Email: gengfan0104@163.com;
handongtai@cumt.edu.cn
Funding information
National Natural Science Foundation of
China, Grant/Award Numbers: 51506215
and 41572263
Abstract
Ice slurry is used widely as phase change materials (PCMs) to reduce the peak
demand for power system. Drop formation plays a key role during ice slurry
production in liquid–liquid circulating fluidized bed. In the present work, drop
formation in a co‐current liquid–liquid flow was investigated via a 3D model.
Volume of fluid method was adopted to study drop characteristics by tracking
the interface. Major influences of the water velocity, the oil velocity, the jet
size, and the jet number on drop formation were analyzed for drop character-
istics. The results indicate that properties of drop formation vary significantly
according to the different conditions. The drop size was distributed mainly as
the normal distribution, and the average drop diameter varies with different
conditions. The drop size varies from 0.7 to 1.9 mm at the water velocity of
0.5 m/s, whereas the size of drop size varies from 1.8 to about 2.65 mm at
the water velocity of 1.5 m/s. Furthermore, the residence time of drop
decreases obviously with the increase of the oil velocity. When the oil velocity
is 0.1 m/s, a drop leaves the top outlet at about 0.44 s. When the oil velocity is
0.3 m/s, a drop reaches the outlet at about 0.15 s. Additionally, the simulated
results were compared with the relevant experimental results and the previous
simulated results. Reasonable agreements have been gained, which can vali-
date the established model to some extent.
KEYWORDS
drop formation, ice thermal storage, liquid–liquid flow, numerical simulation, size distribution,
volume of fluid
1 | INTRODUCTION
Thermal storage contributes to controlling the rise of
energy consumption by balancing energy supply and
demand. In the building sector, phase change materials
(PCMs) are increasingly used to reduce the peak
demand.
1-3
Particularly in summer, large amount of
energy is consumed by ventilating and air‐conditioning
systems for a comfortable environment.
4-6
A variety of
Nomenclature: F, the momentum source term (N); n, the normal line
for the surface (−); p, the mixture pressure (Pa); S, the source term (−);
t, time (s); v, the velocity vector (m/s)
Greek letters: ρ, the density (kg/m
3
); α
1
, the volume fraction for the
primary phase (−); α
2
, the volume fraction for the secondary phase
(−); α
q
, the volume fraction for the q phase (−); μ, the mixture
viscosity (kg/s); V
water
, the water inlet velocity (m/s); V
oil
, the water
inlet velocity (m/s); D
jet
, the diameter of the jet (mm); σ, the surface
tension (N/m); κ, the surface curvature
Received: 3 January 2018 Revised: 9 March 2018 Accepted: 11 April 2018
DOI: 10.1002/apj.2203
Asia‐Pac J Chem Eng. 2018;13:e2203.
https://doi.org/10.1002/apj.2203
© 2018 Curtin University and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/apj 1of14
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