CFD Simulation On Two-phase Flow Field Of Combined Directed Floating Valve Trays

In this paper, a three-demission transient CFD model was established to estimate the gas-liquid flow field on a fully open combined directed floating valve tray according to the actual experimental tower. The model was developed in Eulerain framework with Fluent 6.3, using standard k-εturbulence model, and the interaction between gas and liquid was mainly referring to drag force. To verify the reliability of CFD simulation results, the hydraulics experiments were carried out with the air-water system to research the changing of clear liquid height with different empty tower gas velocities, liquid flow intensities and weir heights. The simulation results were in good agreement with the experiment and Dhulesia model data, which showed that the CFD results were reliable. Furthermore, the CFD results showed that there were horizontal and vertical eddies in valve zone and liquid outlet zone; In valve zone, the liquid was constantly accelerated by the gas from the valves along fluid flow direction, and liquid flow velocity had a patchy distribution for the structure of the experimental tray along the vertical direction of fluid flow. The paper provided an efficient method to simulation the gas-liquid flow field on a fully open combined directed floating valve tray, which showed that CFD might be used as a powerful tool to design and optimize the tray structure.