Numerical Investigation on the Mechanism of Multicomponent Boiling in Porous Media Using LBM at Pore Scale

Da Zhang,¹ Sufen Li,¹ Yan Li,^2* Ning Mei,² Hang Pu¹ and Si Jiao¹

¹School of Energy and Power Engineering, Key Laboratory of Ocean Energy Utilization and Energy Conservation of Ministry of Education, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China

²Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, China

Abstract

In this study, the boiling of seawater containing non-condensable gas (NCG) in porous media was simulated using the pseudopotential multiphase multicomponent lattice Boltzmann model at pore-scale. The porosity of porous media is 0.37. In addition, the effects of wettability, NCG concentration, and capillary number (CN) on the variations in the gas volume and fluid temperature were numerically investigated. The simulation results show that increasing wettability and CN can effectively suppress the increase of gas volume in equilibrium, while gas volume is not sensitive to changes in NCG concentration. Besides, a decrease in wettability can effectively reduce the average fluid temperature, whereas an increase in the NCG concentration and CN can increase the average temperature of the fluid in the equilibrium state although the effect is limited. The decrease in wettability, concentration of NCG and CN can effectively inhibit the temperature rise of the fluid, but this effect is limited.

Keywords: Multicomponent boiling flow; Seawater; Non-condensable gas; Lattice Boltzmann; Porous media

*Corresponding author

E-mail address: yanli@ouc.edu.cn