International Journal of Computation and Applied Sciences IJOCAAS, Volume 3, Issue 3, December 2017, ISSN: 2399-4509
CFD Modelling of dissolved salt / water flow
mixture nucleate pool boiling phase change
through vertical bundle of holes
Mustafa Ahmed Abdulhussain
Abstract- A steam iron nucleate flow boiling phase
change at saturation temperature have been simulated
numerically in the ANSYS-CFX code taking into consideration
the dissolved salt volume fraction rate, the two-phase flow field is
spreaded through circular patterned holes with natural
convection pool phase change, the mixture is subjected to a
uniform heating source of (100°C) constant temperature. Two
cases were adopted, the first with pure flow mixture (continuous
liquid to dispersed vapor), and the second with dissolved salt
injection. Applying Schiller naumann drag model for momentum
transfer and the two-resistance heat transfer (Ranz-Marshall
/zero resistance) models. It is concluded that salt increased have a
negative effect on the evaporation phenomena by slowing the
phase transition, and decreasing temperature contours.
Index Terms- dissolved salt, two phase nucleate boiling,
steam iron
I- Introduction
W
Wateater is the nerve of life and all its related treatments are
necessary either for human, animal, or plant life [1]. In
addition, it is now related to industry, energy transfer and
storage [2]. Water is used today in solar heaters to store heat
absorbed by solar radiation [3]-[4]. It is also used as a saline
solution in solar ponds to store the sun's heat for long periods
and for many uses [5]-[6].
Water dissolved salts plays a great role in the nucleate
boiling phase change phenomena and in the reliability and
endurance of relevant devices such as boilers, electric
heaters…. etc. This case is complex since it includes the
nucleate phase change with heat transfer involved in two
different manners, the first is natural convection between flow
volumes considering vapor bubble growth, and the second
involves conduction with dissolved salt particles.
Thus, the case modeling is clearly intensive in CFD that
incorporates multiple parameters such as boiling bulk source
influence on vapor bubbles growth rate where the translation
of sensible heat transfer from the heaters coil contributes in
transient phase change, the dissolved salt minimum and
maximum particles size in addition to their flow- conjugated
travelling speed.
Mustafa Ahmed Abdul-hussain is now a Lecturer in the Mechanical
Engineering Department, University of Technology, Baghdad-Iraq.
Email: mustafa.ahmed1971@gmail.com
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In addition, the nucleate pool developed pressure, nucleate
side density change and the interference criteria between pools
with tubes natural/ forced convection are major factors of
interest.
Aplenty of research works concerning nucleate pool
boiling process have been performed due to the highly
importance developing heat transfer correlation-involved
factors.
Pezo and Stevanovic [7] predicted a numerical simulation
for heat transfer coefficient in nucleate boiling flow with
coupling of transient heat conduction with walls; they
compared the results with experimental correlations showing a
good agreement. They concluded that walls surface roughness
have a great influence on the nucleate boiling heat transfer.
Rowinski et al. [8] modeled a non-uniform heat flux
distribution applied to a vertical tube flow in supercritical
conditions (nuclear reactor) numerically, the trending results
approaches good agreement with Ornatsky et al. [9] and
Bishop et al. [10] results. The researchers found that tube wall
temperature depends higher on the Reynolds number than the
operating critical pressure.
Zhang et al [11] have investigated two phase boiling in
vertical bundle of tubes at approximately atmospheric
conditions experimentally. They developed new correlations
for heat transfer coefficient for laminar and Reynolds number
for transition regions flow. An important conclusion admitted
that forced convection heat transfer instead of nucleate is
dominant for boiling heat transfer phenomena.
Water dissolved salts forms a great fouling resistance to
heat transfer cases, reduce operating pressure and partially
blocks flow channels as well as increasing metal corrosion
spreading [12]. In boiling operation, evaporation of liquid will
sediment and accumulate the dissolved particles on the heating
source body, as with time passing gradual slowdown rate of
evaporation and loss of pressure as they have very poor
conductivity (below 2W/m2 K).
Helalizadeh et al. [12] investigated the salt crystals fouling
on heat transfer surfaces during convection heat transfer with
sub-cooled boiling conditions focusing on solution salts
composition; they predicted the fouling resistance model that
showed a good agreement with experiments.
Pool boiling heat transfer coefficient with electrolyte
solution measurement was implemented by Ahmadi et al. [13]
focusing on changes in density on nucleation side, bubbles
departure diameter with their generation rate. With lower
subjected heat flux, the heat transfer coefficient is lower than
the pure water measured values and the bubbles departure The momentum equation
diameters increased, while the heat transfer coefficient
increased with high heat flux values. They introduced a
correlation for calculating the boiling heat transfer coefficient
with only liquid fraction mass transfer assumption.
The numerical simulation of nucleate boiling transient
phase change in the ANSYS CFX code is modelled estimating
constant heating source flux. The investigation of pure and
The energy equation
seawater salts dissolved two-phase volume mixture with
(100°C) saturation temperature in steam iron half-filled vessel
carried out. Applying Schiller Naumann drag coefficient for
modeling momentum transfer between the fluid phases and the
thermal phase change model for the mass transfer resulted
from the boiling phenomena. Adopting two-resistance model
for the two-phase heat transfer exchange Dissolved salts is
considered as a particle transport solid having the same flow The heated wall energy equation
travel speed. Steam iron vessel is half - filled of water
covering the heating element considering opening inlet
boundary condition, the mixture flows through 8 vertical holes
to the free stream. The simulation of the phase change
phenomena with transient mass transfer occurrence for both
pure two-phase flow and dissolved salts/flow mixture
considering steam iron contributed walls thermal conduction
heat loss. The pool flow is considered laminar (natural circulation)
with turbulent flow through tubes; the well-known K-Ɛ
II- CASE MODELING scalable turbulence model is utilized
Figure (1) illustrates the steam iron including the water k     
vessel that is half-filled in addition to the heating element  .U A   .   t A  Pk  
sketched with SOLIDWORKS 2016 considering the vessel t   k  
enclosure is pressurized (2bar). The heating element has a U-       
shape circular coil of (1.5 cm) diameter. The vessel  . U    .   t    C1 Pk  C 2  
dimensions are (15*15*10), with the eight flow holes diameter t      k
and length of (1 & 5) respectively.
The thermal phase change model considers interface heat
transfer between phase sides (the two-resistance model). The
sensible heat flux from the heating source for the liquid phase
(a) and vapor phase (b) assuming no mass transfer will be:
𝑞𝑎 = ℎ𝑎 (𝑇𝑖 − 𝑇𝑎)

𝑞𝑏 = ℎ𝑏 (𝑇𝑖 − 𝑇𝑏)

Where the subscripts (a & b) represents the liquid and

vapor phases.
(Ti) is the volumes interfacing temperature, which is equal
to the saturation temperature-neglecting phase’s volume
surface tension. In our case, the mass transfer is a major
involved criterion, the interphase mass transfer for both phases
Fig.1 The case geometry considering sensible heat balance (𝑞𝑎 = 𝑞𝑏)
𝑄𝑎 = 𝑞𝑎 + 𝑚𝑎𝑏 . 𝐻𝑎𝑠
The governing solved equations for both phases are the
continuity, momentum and energy in addition to the heater
walls energy equation 𝑄𝑏 = 𝑞𝑏 − 𝑚𝑎𝑏 . 𝐻𝑏𝑠
The continuity equation
Where (mab) is the mass flux from phase (b) and (Has, Hbs)
represents the enthalpy difference for each phase.
The phase transition requires defining continuous and
dispersed phases. In our case, the liquid is the continuous
279
phase with vapor dispersion (bubbled flow), one of the most
factors arises among interaction of the two phases is the fluid
volume drag function, the Schiller-Naumann correlation for
drag coefficient have been adopted in the simulation
𝐶𝑑 = 24(1 + 0.15𝑅𝑒 0.687 ) For 0 ≤Re≤1000
(3000W/m2K) (boiling heat transfer range from 3000-100000
[8]).
4- Salt dissolved particles is considered as a conjugated
flow injected travelling solid having mean diameter range of
(0.001-0.002m) treated as a homogeneous solid with sea salts
thermal properties.

𝐶𝑑 = 0.44 For Re>1000
The predicted phase heat transfer closely related to the
phase Nusselt number. The two Resistance model
implemented in the solution using the Ranz-Marshall
correlation equation (12) for liquid phase heat transfer that is
the most suitable for spherical bubbles formation [8].
𝑁𝑢𝑎 = 2 + 0.6𝑅𝑒 0.5 𝑃𝑟 0.33
For continuous liquid boiling process with constant
saturation conditions, the zero-resistance vapor heat transfer
model is the most appropriate one [8].
Figure (2) denotes the hex-dominant un-structured mesh
capable to handle unlimited size of grids generated with
statistics of more than (250000) nodes and (1150000)
elements using the ANSYS ICEM CFD meshing code
Selecting the high resolution advection scheme with
second order transient approach, working to desired root mean
square residual (RMS) to [1e-4], the solution time periods
have been taken 10 sec,30 sec and 60 sec(1 minute) with time
step 0.5 second.
III- RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
A- Pure two phase mixture:
Figures (3-13) represents the pure water liquid/vapor two
phase characteristics transient behavior with time, figures (3)
& (4) clearly illustrates the thermal balance for each phase at
time step (t=10 sec); moreover, balanced volume fraction is
observed through tubes bundle.

Fig.3 liquid volume fraction gradient change at t=10 sec

The vapor-phase temperature contours near wall is

influenced by the natural convection phenomena as noticed in
Fig.2 Generated mesh
figure (5) remarking the gradual descending temperatures
from upper to lower control volume surfaces.

The boundary conditions applied to the case solution are as

follows:
1- Assuming the flow mixture initial saturation pressure
and temperature are (2 Bar) and (100°C). The heating element
has a fixed temperature of (100°C). To shorten the time of
simulation, the mixture is assumed of equally (50%) initial
volume fraction
2- An inlet opening boundary condition was adopted in
order to preserve the mixture saturation properties. The
mixture outlet is exposed to free atmospheric conditions
neglecting still air heat transfer effect.
3- The steam iron body initial temperature is set to
(25°C) with stainless steel material, considering convectional
Fig.4 vapor volume fraction gradient change at t=10 sec
boiling heat transfer coefficient with flow mixture to walls
280
 As the time undergoes 30 & 60 seconds, more changes
in the mixture volume fractions, temperature distribution
and density change becomes clearer in figures (8-13).

Fig.5 vapor temperature contour at t=10 sec

Figure (6) shows the steam iron temperature

Fig.8 vapor volume fraction gradient change at t=30 sec
distribution denotes the maximum on the vessel upper
surface side due to concentrated vapor fraction at that
region. Since the two-phase flow, behavior is density-
changed.

Fig.9 vapor temperature contour at t=30 sec

Fig.6 steam iron temperature distribution

Density variation of the volume fractions is illustrated in

figure (7) noticing less density (vaporized phase) close to the
upper control volume.

Fig.10 two phase mixture density change at t=30 sec

Fig.7 two phase mixture density change at t=10 sec

281
 will furthermore slowdown the evaporation process. Figures
(14), (15) and (16) review the changes in vapor fraction.

Fig.11 vapor volume fraction gradient at t=60 sec

Fig.14 vapor fraction for salt/fluid mixture at t=10 sec

Fig.12 vapor temperature contours at t=60 sec

Fig.15 vapor fraction for salt/fluid mixture at t=30 sec

Fig.13 two phase mixture density change at t=60 sec

B- Dissolved salt/two phase mixture

The injected salt with time step greatly affects the vapor
fraction consistence resulting gradually in increasing bubbles
Fig.16 vapor fraction for salt/fluid mixture at t=60 sec
formation resistance with time since the initial evaporation
will decrease the liquid volume and hence, the salt fraction
282
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Greek symbols
ρ Density (Kg/m3)
Γ Phase transition rate, (kg/ m3 s)
α Void fraction
μ Dynamic viscosity, (Pa·s)
σ Surface tension, (N/m)

Subscripts
k Phase index
b Bubble
c Condensation
e Evaporation
p Particle

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