NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION AND OPTIMIZATION OF A VENTURI SCRUBBER

摘要

A venturi scrubber is a device which utilizes liquid to remove fine particulates from gaseous streams. Particulates generated by industrial plants are considered to be significant sources of air pollution. As such, the reduction in their concentration and number is desirable. In pursuit of this, numerous venturi scrubbers have been employed to eliminate the particles from the exhaust gasses at many industrial plants. At an ArcelorMittal sinter plant, venturi scrubbers circulate water flow inside the throat to entrap the particles. A current problem with this system is the existence of very serious wear on the side wall of the scrubber throat, leading to considerable production downtime. This downtime diminishes the reliability and efficiency of this pollution control equipment. Reducing wear and optimizing the scrubber's performance with increased efficiency requires a better understanding of the flow inside the device. It is however, exceedingly difficult to directly measure and examine the flow characteristics within a scrubber as well as on the inner walls. In the present study, a 3-D Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) model has been developed to simulate the interactive three-phase flow present in a venturi scrubber. The simulation results present detailed flow characteristics and particle distributions. Thus they provide insight into optimization of the scrubber and reduction of the wear on the side walls. This application of CFD modeling has determined an optimized design; solving the wear problem and thus improving the efficiency of a venturi scrubber.