Numerical Modeling for a Circulating Gas-Liquid Turbulent Flow

Bubble columns, or cylindrical vessels with gas-liquid circulated flow are widely used in many industries. The complex nature of the flow has not been fully understood. Based on our previous work (Celik and Wang, 1994) for a laminar gas-liquid flow in a bubble column with interface momentum exchange between gas and liquid phases, we have developed a numerical model which is included the consideration of turbulence in a bubble column. In this model, the mixing length theory is applied to determine the effective viscosity in turbulent flow. The numerical predictions for the liquid velocities show the turbulent effect and reasonably good agreement with the experimental measurements from Gross and Kuhlman (1990). The streamline contours plot characterizes the liquid circulating patterns of turbulent flow.