Pressure Drop in Capsule Transporting Bends Carrying Spherical Capsules

One of the most important parameters in designing a capsule transporting pipeline is the pressure drop in the pipes carrying capsules and associated pipe fittings such as bends etc. Capsules are hollow containers with typically cylindrical or spherical shapes flowing in the pipeline along with the carrier fluid. The dynamic behavior of a long train of capsules depends on the behavior of each capsule in the train and the hydrodynamic influence of one capsule on another. Researchers so far have used rather simplified empirical and semi-empirical correlations for pressure drop calculations, the range and application of which are fairly limited. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) based techniques have been used to analyze the effect of the presence of solid phase in hydraulic bends. A steady state numerical solution has been obtained from the equations governing turbulent flow in pipe bends carrying spherical capsule train consisting of one to four capsules. The bends under consideration are of 45 degrees and 90 degrees with an inner diameter of 0.1m. The investigation was carried out in the practical range of 0.2 <= Vb >= 1.6 m/sec. The computationally obtained data set over a wide range of flow conditions has been used to develop a rigorous model for pressure drop calculations. The pressure drop along the pipe bends, in combination with the pressure drop along the pipes, can be used to calculate the pumping requirements and hence design of the system.