Modeling of sand-water slurry flow through horizontal pipe using CFD

The paper presents three-dimensional CFD analysis of two-phase (sand-water) slurry flows through 263 mm diameter pipe in horizontal orientation for mixture velocity range of 3.5-4.7 m/s and efflux concentration range of 9.95-34% with three particle sizes viz. 0.165 mm, 0.29 mm and 0.55 mm with density 2650 kg/m³. RNG k-ε turbulence closure equations with Eulerian multi-phase model is used to simulate various slurry flows. The simulated values of local solid concentration are compared with the experimental data and are found to be in good agreement for all particle sizes. Effects of particle size on various slurry flow parameters such as pressure drop, solid phase velocity distribution, friction factor, granular pressure, turbulent viscosity, turbulent kinetic energy and its dissipation have been analyzed.