NUMERICAL STUDY OF TWO-PHASE VISCOELASTIC FLOW IN A TWO- DIMENSIONAL T-JUNCTION

Abstract. The present investigation is mainly concerned with the construction of a new predictive code for the simulation of two-phase flows when one of the phases may have non-Newtonian, viscoelastic properties. Of the two fundamental approaches to model two-phase flows, we follow the Eulerian one, with both phases treated as interpenetrating continua. Simulations are performed for a steady-state laminar incompressible flow, in a planar 2D bifurcation where the branch makes an angle of 90 degrees with the main arm, and with the continuous phase being a viscoelastic liquid while the dispersed phase is either composed by particles or is a Newtonian fluid. The choice of this geometry is motivated by future application to hemodynamic flows, since it is well-known that vascular diseases tend to occur near the branches of arterial bifurcations. Two-phase flows in bifurcations involving viscoelastic fluids are encountered in other important applications, like the petroleum industries where the bifurcations are used to separate the oil from the natural gas in sub-sea pipelines before being transported to their destination