Numerical simulation of rectangular dropshafts using a volume-of-fluid (VoF) technique

This paper focuses on the implementation, validation and exploitation of a vertical dropshaft flow operation using the commercial VOF-based Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code, FLOW-3D®. Using the experimental data of Chanson (2002), the package was used to simulate the flow patterns in a rectangular dropshaft with plunge-flow pattern. Both k−epsilon and k−epsilon RNG turbulence closures were tested and the computed hydraulic parameters were found to be in good agreement with the experimental observations. The results demonstrate that the CFD modeling of rectangular plunge-flow dropshaft hydraulics is viable and useful to evaluate the hydraulic parameters of fundamental importance when modeling collection systems in one dimension