CFD Study of Particle Flow Patterns in a Rotating Cylinder Applying OpenFOAM and Fluent

Abstract

A rotating cylinder (RC) is a common type of reactor used in the industry, the most typical example being a cement kiln. The particle flow pattern inside such a unit is necessary for the mass and energy transfer, and this flow pattern depends on the operational Froude number and the degree of filling. The main aim of this study is to compare the simulation results from OpenFOAM and Fluent applying a Eulerian multiphase flow modeling concept to study the behavior of dense particle gas mixtures under different operational conditions. Six different flow patterns are simulated, varying the degree of filling from 10 to 45 % and the Froude number from 0.0001 to 5. OpenFOAM is capable of producing results very close to those generated with Fluent, and both software appears to be suitable for simulating the RC dense particle flow using the Eulerian approach.