Prediction of the evolution of the dispersed phase in bubbly flow problems

For modeling multi-phase where the dispersed phase plays a major role in determining the flow structure and inter phase transfer quantities, the size distribution of the bubbles has to be considered. This can be done by extension of the mass balance equation to a population balance equation. In this work, a least squares spectral method is tested for predicting the evolution of the dispersed phase in a vertical two-phase bubbly flow. The least squares spectral method consists in minimizing the L-2 norm of the residual over the simulation domain. The results are compared with experimental data obtained for two different initial bubble distributions. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.