Investigating the Effects of Mass Transfer and Mixture Non-Ideality on Multiphase Flow Hydrodynamics Using CFD Methods

A numerical framework has been proposed to model the interacting effects of mixture non-ideality and mass transfer on hydrodynamics of a multiphase system using CFD methods. Mass transfer during condensation and vaporization is modeled by chemical potential at the liquid-vapor interface. Species mass transfers are related to the diffusion at the interface which in turn is related to the concentration gradients at the interface. A finite volume scheme is used to solve the equations of motion. Since the thermodynamic non-ideality of the system has been taken into account, the equilibrium calculations were performed using the fugacity coefficient definition for both the liquid and gas phases. The obtained results and their comparison against experimental data show that the proposed framework can simulate the hydrodynamic behavior of multi-component multi-phase systems with thermodynamic non-ideality.