Numerical Investigation of the Pouring Process of Liquid From an Open-Top Hydrostatic Column

Liquid flows in a particular pattern and sequence when it is poured out from an open-top hydrostatic column. Since the liquid in the pouring process has a large deformation, conventional mesh-based method has difficulty in simulating. A meshless method, the moving particle semi-implicit (MPS) method, has been employed in this paper to calculate the unsteady flow with complex deformation. A modified solid-liquid boundary condition was verified and adopted with a new definition of static liquid layers. The hydrostatic column and the liquid inside were all discretized by identical particles but under different parameter values; the circular arc camber boundary condition is expressed accurately with particles by using cylindrical coordinate system. The pouring process is reproduced numerically and the flowing sequence of fluid is analyzed by tracking the fluid particles. The flowing sequence of the liquid can be calculated by restoring the liquid particles back to their initial positions before it is poured. The mass transfer property, liquid flowing sequence and even the flow rate were found to depend on the position of the rotation axis. The cases with typical rotational axis positions were calculated and analyzed. The character vortex which is generated by the rotation of the container in two-dimensional simulation in previous work dose not exist in the three dimensional simulation in this paper. The results reveal a principle for a versatile pouring process and may contribute to the applications of flowing control in many fields.