1 CFD MODELLING OF DIRECT CONTACT STEAM INJECTION

The direct injection of steam into a process stream is a method of heating used in many process industries. The amount of research in this area however is limited to the nuclear industry, with applications relating to reactor cooling systems. There are no general CFD models available for designs relating to the process industry. A lab-scale experiment was conducted to investigate the direct injection of steam into water. The height of the steam plume was measured against different water temperatures providing a means to validate the subroutine used in the CFD models. A subroutine was developed to describe the heat and mass transfer between the vapour and liquid phases, based on previous work by the author on flashing flows. The subroutine was compiled into FLUENT (ver 6.2.16) using the Eulerian multiphase model. The model was then applied to an industrial scale problem giving unique insights into the operation of the equipment and the behaviour of the condensing steam