An open-source quadrature-based population balance solver for OpenFOAM

Alberto Passalaqua (1) , Frédérique Laurent (2, 3) , E. Madadi-Kandjani (1) , J C Heylmun (1) , Rodney O Fox (1)

1 ISU - Iowa State University
2 EM2C - Laboratoire d'Énergétique Moléculaire et Macroscopique, Combustion
3 FR3487 - Fédération de Mathématiques de l'Ecole Centrale Paris

The extended quadrature method of moments (EQMOM) for the solution of population balance equations (PBE) is implemented in the open-source computational fluid dynamic (CFD) toolbox OpenFOAM as part of the Open-QBMM project. The moment inversion procedure was designed (Nguyen et al., 2016) to maximize the number of conserved moments in the transported moment set. The algorithm is implemented in a general structure to allow the addition of other kernel density functions defined on R + , and arbitrary kernels to describe physical phenomena involved in the evolution of the number density function. The implementation is verified with a set of zero-dimensional cases involving aggregation and breakage problems. Comparison to the rigorous solution of the PBE provides validation for these cases. The coupling of the EQMOM procedure with a CFD solver to address aggre-gation and breakage problems of non-inertial particles is validated against experimental measurements in a Taylor-Couette reactor from literature.

Mots clés: density function; OpenFOAM; log-normal kernel; Extended quadrature method of moments; OpenQBMM; aggregation and breakage; population balance equation

Domaines: Modélisation et simulation; Milieux fluides et réactifs; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]

Alberto Passalaqua, Frédérique Laurent, E. Madadi-Kandjani, J C Heylmun, Rodney O Fox. An open-source quadrature-based population balance solver for OpenFOAM. Chemical Engineering Science, 2018, 176, pp.306 --318. ⟨10.1016/j.ces.2017.10.043⟩. ⟨hal-01481110⟩