Numerical Simulation of Bubble Breakup and Coalescence Behavior in Gas-stirred Ladle

A CFD-PBM coupled mathematical model was proposed to describe the bubble breakup and coalescence behavior in gas-stirred ladle based on the Eulerian-Eulerian approach. The effect of turbulence shear collision, bubble floating velocity difference collision and turbulence random collision on the bubble coalescence behavior were considered; the sensitivity of three typical breakup model including Luo model, Lehr model and Laakkonen model on bubble size distribution were considered. The result showed that the turbulence random collision and bubble floating velocity difference collision were the main mechanism to affect bubble coalescence behavior, while the effect of turbulence shear collision can be ignored. The bubble size distribution predicted by Lehr model was different with other two models and the measured data, because it highly predicted the bubble breakup frequency in current system. The effect of Luo model and Laakkonen model on bubble size distribution were so small that the bubble size distribution is mainly dominated by bubble coalescence behavior. Bubble-induced turbulence would affect the bubble breakup and coalescence behavior, it would promote the bubble coalescence behavior, the volume fraction of large bubbles increased significantly in this work. The size distribution predicted by the present model agree well with the measured data in the water model.