NUMERICAL MODELING OF TURBULENT FLOW THROUGH AN ISOTROPIC POROUS MEDIA

Abstract

Flow through porous media has a wide application in various engineering fields such as nuclear, chemical, geological, mechanical, petroleum, environmental etc. In the present work a spatially periodic array of infinite elliptical cylinders is used to simulate the turbulent flow field inside an elementary control volume representing a porous medium. The standard k- E model is being used for the description of turbulent flow in the porous media. Turbulent equations are descretized by means of the control-volume approach in flow domain having different porosity. The porosity and Darcy Reynolds number varied from 0.9 to 0.6 (i.e. 0.6. 0.7, 0.8 and 0.9) and 100 to 40.000 (i.e. 100. 1000, 10000 and 40000). respectively. The effect of porosity and Darcy Reynolds number on turbulent kinetic energy and dissipation rate is investigated. The grid sensitivity analysis has been carried out to obtain the accurate results. The present findings using k— turbulence model have been compared with the large eddy simulation model and found to quite higher value than the LES model. It is found that with increase in the Reynolds number the overall pressure drop. dissipation rate and turbulent kinetic energy increases. 1-lowever. with increase in porosity the adverse effect is observed. i.e. overall pressure drop, dissipation rate and turbulent kinetic energy decreases.