Numerical analysis of the liquid ejection due to the gaseous jet impact through computational fluid dynamics.

Abstract

Metal droplets generated by an impinging jet, play an important role in metal refining processes, mainly in oxygen steelmaking, where the droplets are ejected into the slag phase. Since the available interfacial area of droplets is very high in this process, the generated droplets enhance the rates of heat transfer and chemical reactions. Therefore, knowledge of the metal droplet generation rate, size distribution and residence time in the slag are of industrial relevance. In this work, the isothermal, transient flow of an incompressible air jet impinging onto an air/water interface at room temperature has been simulated to obtain a better understanding of the droplet ejection phenomenon. The interface was tracked throughout time using the volume of fluid (VOF) technique. The governing equations formulated for mass and momentum conservation and the k-e turbulence model are solved in the axisymmetric computational domain using the commercial code FLUENT. The droplet ejection rates calculated with computational fluid dynamics model are compared to experimental data reported in literature, showing partial agreement, being the incompressibility assumption the probable reason for the deviation observed, which was as far pronounced as the great jet velocity. Nevertheless, the model presented shows itself as a relatively good starting point for the construction of more complex ones (with less simplifying assumptions) which should be able to offer a means to increase the understanding of the droplet ejection phenomena.