Numerical simulation of pressure loss in porous media in oscillating flow

Abstract

In this study, the pressure loss in two types of porous media for both unidirectional and oscillatory flows is analyzed using commercial software Comsol©. The numerical results are compared with those obtained in the previous experiments performed by the author of this article. The porous media used in these experiments consist of mono-sized stainless steel balls with diameters of 1 mm and 3 mm, the liquid phase being water. The permeability and inertial coefficient for each type of medium is obtained from the analysis of the experimental data. The unidirectional flow has a surface velocity range of 20-100 mm/s, while the oscillating flow has two different frequencies of 0.233 Hz and 0.35 Hz and two different flow oscillation amplitudes of 170 mm and 195 mm, making a total of eight separate oscillating flow conditions for two types of porous media, for both in the experiments and the numerical studies. The results have shown that Comsol© can produce reliable results on fluid flow problems in porous media, provided that the relevant flow and porous media parameters have been selected correctly. © 2018, World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society. All rights reserved.