Numerical and experimental study of gas-particle flows in orifices and venturis: Application to flowmeter design

A computational and experimental investigation was made of gas-particle flow through orifices and Venturis. Emphasis was placed on the flowmetering aspects of these geometries. The particle-source-in-cell model was developed for modeling steady two dimensional gas-particle flows through an orifice. The flow field was solved numerically using the pressure velocity formulation for the gas flow and Lagrangian approach for the particle motion. A quasi one dimensional model was developed for gas-particle flow through a Venturi. The gas flow field solution was obtained using the conservative variable formulation. The numerical results showed that for large Stokes number flows, particles do not affect the gas pressure field. If Stokes number is small, particles do affect the pressure field significantly, and the pressure drop was found to be varying linearly with the particle loading.