Experimental and Numerical analysis of Flow characteristics of sand water slurry in a horizontal pipe

Abstract

The experimental investigation has been performed using sand-water slurry on the horizontal pipe section of a pilot plant test loop of 60 m long with a 100 mm pipe diameter. The sand average particle size used for experimentation is 150 µm. The solid concentration of sand-water slurry has taken as 10 to 40% (by weight) and influx velocity as 1 to 4 m/s.  A similar study has conducted using the Eulerian-multiphase model of CFD code FLUENT. The present investigation's first objective is to analyze the pressure loss, volume fraction distribution, influx velocity distribution in the pipe, skin friction coefficient and the second objective is to find the location at which the flow is developed and the volume fraction becomes stable in the pipe. The numerical simulations have been performed to improve the accuracy of the results using five turbulence models that are SST model k-w, standard k-e, realizable k-e, and standard k-w. The SST k-ω model is the best suitable in comparison to other turbulence models concerning accuracy. The results obtained through numerical simulation are validated with experimental results. It is found from the experimental and numerical analysis that the pressure loss is a function of solid concentration and influx velocity and the granular pressure of the solid phase increases with the influx velocity.