Direct simulations of mixing and aggregation in dense solid-liquid suspensions Jos Derksen & Radompon Sungkorn Chemical & Materials Engineering University of Alberta Canada 10 min presentations incl q&a jos@ualberta.ca www.ualberta.ca/~jos/home.html
The issue: mixing in flocculants THE chance to mix flocculant in tailings turbulent flow of a dense slurry in a pipe how much pipe length do we need? how to inject? scale will matter (?) GOAL try to visualize and understand mixing mechanisms at fine length scales through simulation
The “scientific” issues the need for a multi-scale approach fluid mechanics: turbulence of a dense solid-liquid suspensions resolution of small turbulent eddies & the solid particles macro-scale mass transport: spreading of the flocculant in the interstitial liquid meso-scale aggregation: modeling the sticking-together of solids in flocculant-rich regions
A few words on modeling & numerics Lattice-Boltzmann method for solving the flow of interstitial fluid 3D, time-dependent Explicitly resolve the solid-liquid interface: immersed boundary method particle diameter typically 12 grid-spacings Solve equations of linear and rotational motion for each sphere forces & torques: directly (and fully) coupled to hydrodynamics plus gravity hard-sphere collisions Finite Volume approach to scalar transport (for mixing of flocculant in liquid) fluid flow particle motion scalar
Aggregation modeling - shear flow example attractive interaction between particles defined by a square-well-potential two parameters: and vc if vr < vc particles stick sticky particles
Some sample (former) results settling & flocculating suspension particles colored by the aggregate size turbulent flow over a granular bed particles colored by their velocity g scalar mixing in a micro solid-liquid fluid bed
Perspective / research plans Generate dense, turbulent slurry flow Study spreading rates of floculant in this flow as a function of turbulence properties particle size (relative to turbulence length scales) solids volume fraction Simulate flocculation in quiescent suspensions relate square-well potential to flocculant concentration effects of (inhomogeneous) flocculant distributions