Abstract Proper turbulence modelling of bubble plumes is critical for accurate simulation of liquid phase and bubble dynamics. The k-epsilon turbulence model is widely used. However, the model is unsatisfactory due to not accounting for the following physics: (1) turbulence damping in the vicinity of a free surface; (2) turbulence modifications created by non-uniform distribution of the bubbles; (3) extra turbulence agitation by bubble wakes. In order to remedy these deficiencies, an enhanced turbulence model has been developed, followed with application to a literature experiment of a gas-stirred ladle. The model framework is an Eulerian-Lagrangian large scale interface-capturing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach, coupling a volume-of-fluid model with discrete phase model. The implications of each physical process in turbulence modelling are investigated. The detailed model-experiment comparisons indicate that the enhanced turbulence model allows improved representation of the physics of bubble plumes, as well as the transport phenomena at, and close to, the free surface.

中文翻译：

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关于气泡羽流的湍流建模

摘要 气泡羽流的正确湍流建模对于液相和气泡动力学的准确模拟至关重要。k-epsilon 湍流模型被广泛使用。然而，由于没有考虑以下物理因素，该模型并不令人满意： (1) 自由表面附近的湍流阻尼；(2) 气泡不均匀分布造成的湍流修正；(3)气泡尾流引起的额外湍流搅动。为了弥补这些不足，开发了增强型湍流模型，并将其应用于气体搅拌钢包的文献实验中。该模型框架是欧拉-拉格朗日大规模界面捕获计算流体动力学 (CFD) 方法，将流体体积模型与离散相模型耦合。研究了湍流建模中每个物理过程的影响。详细的模型实验比较表明，增强的湍流模型可以改进气泡羽流的物理特性，以及自由表面处和附近的传输现象。