A gas-liquid flow in the mm-μm scale is often used in industrial equipment, and it is necessary to develop prediction technology to determine the complicated behavior of a free surface transform. Open source CFD software, such as OpenFOAM, has recently attracted attention for use in industrial applications. We investigated the possibility of using OpenFOAM in the development process of fluid machinery products. We started out by conducting a continuous-inkjet simulation. We compared the simulation results for the breakup length of a liquid column with theoretical results, and then, we evaluated the effect of nozzle length on the breakup length of the liquid column. Next, we evaluated a refrigerant distributor by conducting another simulation. The simulated distribution ratio of the refrigerants was compared with the experimental results, and we checked the efficiency of a parallel simulation. The simulation results for each model qualitatively agreed well with the theoretical or experimental results. Therefore, we found that the simulation using OpenFOAM was effective for large scale simulation of gas-liquid free surface flows.

Volume Subject Area:
Fluids Engineering Systems and Technologies
Topics:
Flow (Dynamics), Nozzles, Refrigerants, Simulation, Simulation results, Computational fluid dynamics, Computer software, Fluids, Machinery
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