A Comparative Study of Mixed Resolved-Unresolved CFD-DEM and Unresolved CFD-DEM Methods for the Solution of Particle-Laden Liquid Flows

The exorbitant economic and environmental cost associated with fouling propels the need to develop advanced numerical methods to accurately decipher the underlying phenomena of fouling and multiphase fluid transport in jet-engine fuel systems. Clogging of jet-fuel systems results in the foulants to settle in seconds to form a porous layer which restricts fuel flow. The objective of this research is to numerically examine the transient evolution of particle-laden liquid flow and particle accumulation on an idealized jet-fuel filter. This is achieved by using two numerical approaches: coupled unresolved computational fluid dynamics-discrete element method (CFD-DEM), and coupled mixed resolved-unresolved CFD-DEM method. We assess the efficacy of both numerical methods by comparing the numerical results against experimental data. Results have shown that the particle accumulation and deposition profiles are in good agreement with the experimental results. Moreover, it is found that the particle distribution spread along the length and height of the channel reflects the actual particle spread as observed in the experiments. The unresolved CFD-DEM and mixed resolved-resolved CFD-DEM method could be harnessed to study complex multiphase fluid flow transport in various other applications such as compact heat exchangers and fluidized beds.