PREDICTION OF VERTICAL LIQUID SOLID PIPE FLOW USING MEASURED CONCENTRATION DISTRIBUTION

The performance of a standard (k-L) turbulence model for predicting slurry pipeline pressure gradients is examined using experimental measurements of velocity and solids concentration distribution for upward vertical flows. Assuming the solids concentration rises abruptly from a value of zero at the pipe wall over a distance corresponding to one half a particle diameter, satisfactory predictions were obtained for sand particles of median diameter up to about 800 um in a 25.8 mm vertical pipeline. No damping of fluid turbulence or additional stresses due to particle-particle interactions were included in the computational model. Velocity distributions are found to be flatter than those of turbulent single-phase flows, because of the variation of mixture properties in the vicinity of the pipe wall.