Experimental and numerical studies on the two-dimensional flow characteristics in the radially stratified porous bed

The experiment and numerical simulations are both conducted in the present study to better understand the twodimensional flow characteristics in the radially stratified porous bed. Spherical particles of two different sizes are packed in the left part and right part of a cylindrical test section separately to form a two-layer bed with the configuration of radial stratification. The variations of pressure drops in each part of the stratified bed are measured when water flows up through the packed bed. Meanwhile, the numerical simulation is also carried out to investigate the flow field in the stratified bed, especially the flow characteristics around the interface of two parts. The results indicated that the pressure drops in the two layers of radial stratified bed are almost equal. When the fluids flow up through the radially stratified porous layers, the lateral flowing from the low permeability layer to the high permeability layer leads to a decrease of pressure drop in the low permeability layer and an increase of pressure drop in the high permeability layer. Most of the lateral flow occurs in the initial part of the test section. Besides, the lateral and vertical pressure gradient can be well predicted by Ergun equation respectively.

Automated summary

In this study, experiments and numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the two-dimensional flow characteristics in a radially stratified porous bed. The experimental results showed that the pressure drops in the two layers of the radially stratified bed were almost equal, and lateral flowing from the low permeability layer to the high permeability layer caused the pressure drop variations. The numerical simulation results were in good agreement with the experimental results.