Analysis of the viscoelastic closures performance in k-É turbulent models for FENE-P fluids

• Grant number: 17/17945-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: November 01, 2017
• End date: April 30, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Mechanical Engineering - Transport Phenomena
• Principal Investigator: Pedro Miguel Rebelo Resende
• Grantee: Felipe Barros Lemos
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciência e Tecnologia. Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Sorocaba. Sorocaba , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The advantage of the drag reduction phenomenon by using viscoelastic fluids can be observed in fluid transport at long distances and in heat and refrigeration systems, such as in district heating systems. The reduction of drag phenomenon was discovered by Tom's in 1949 by introducing polymeric particles in a solvent turbulent flow. After that, many researchers try to explain this phenomenon and take more advantage of the viscoelastic fluids present in many industrial processes and under turbulent conditions. Other type of application is the petroleum and derivative transport at long distances, therefore, it is necessary to develop adequate turbulence models that can be used to solve engineering problems. Actually there are models that can accuracy predict relevant quantities, like for example Resende et al. [1-5], but they only were tested in simple geometries like channel and pipe turbulent flows. Others models, [6, 7], are able to capture all regimes of drag reduction but they are not use in commercial codes due to their complexity and difficulty to converge. For this reason, an analysis of the viscoelastic closures performance in k-É turbulent models for FENE-P fluids is proposed, taking the advantage of a better performance in terms of the Newtonian k-É turbulent models, when comparing with the typically k-e turbulent models, for complex geometries. The viscoelastic closures to be tested were developed in the context of the viscoelastic turbulent models k-e type, for turbulent flows with recirculation. In the future will be expected to simulate different types of engineering projects with high performance, and consequently reducing time and cost in experiments. (AU)