NUMERICAL INVESTIGATIONS ON FLOW CHARACTERISTICS OF SANDWATER SLURRY THROUGH HORIZONTAL PIPELINE USING COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

The study presents the numerical computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of sand-water slurry flow with different sand particle sizes viz. 90µm, 125µm, 150µm, 200µm and 270µm having specific gravity of 2.65 through a 103 mm diameter, 5.5 m long horizontal pipeline for a high flow velocity of 5.4 m/s at various solid volumetric concentrations viz. 10%, 20%, 30%, 36% and 40%. Granular version of Eulerian two-phase model with dispersed particles along with RNG –epsilon approach has been utilized. Non-uniform structured mesh with a refinement near the wall boundary has been selected for discretizing the computational flow domain while NavierStokes governing equations are solved in FLUENT 14.0. The effects of the size of sand particles and solid volumetric concentrations on territorial concentration distributions, particle flow velocity and pressure drops have been studied and analyzed. Generalized mathematical correlation has been developed from the simulated results for calculating the consequences of the size of solid particles and solid volumetric concentration on pressure drop analytically. The simulated outcomes of pressure drop are validated with the experimental results. These outcomes will be very helpful in the setup of an experimental model for sand/water slurry flow pipelines in many industries viz. mining, construction, power generation etc.