Dynamic simulation of a 2D bubble column

The present paper demonstrates how 2D, dynamic simulations of a flat bubble column are feasible, applying state-of-the-art dynamic turbulence models, when an appropriate turbulent dispersion term is applied in the conservation equation for the gas volume fraction. The kω turbulence model yielded a better qualitative prediction of the bubble plume than the ke model, due to the low-Reynolds number treatment of the former model. The simple mixing length turbulence model gave the best prediction of the meandering plume, without any dispersion term. The mixing length model is, however, almost identical to a Large-Eddy simulation when run time-dependent on a fine mesh, and should be applied with care due to the use of a constant turbulence length scale and the inherent 3D nature of turbulence. By refining the mesh to the extreme end, it was shown that an apparently grid independent numerical solution was really grid-dependent, even when dynamic turbulence models were applied. The apparently grid independent solution was computed with an increment in the computational mesh that was of the same size as an equilibrium Kolmogorov length scale.