Uso do modelo numérico OpenFOAM na simulação hidrodinâmica de floculadores tubulares helicoidais

Abstract

In the design project of a water treatment plant, a lot of equipment is implemented, being one of them, in a conventional system, the flocculator. Among the different types commonly used, the helical tubular flocculator (FTH) constitutes a category not frequently implemented, as well as with few conclusive studies on its numerical computational hydrodynamics. Studies about the FTH indicate an efficiency of the flocculation that may be viable on the implementation of a minor water treatment plant, however, such implementation is necessary to find reasonable ways to properly design the equipment. The present work goal is to contribute to the solution of this problem through the computational modeling of hydrodynamics. The main goal is to develop a hydrodynamical model adjustable, free, functional, and validated, that could be used for academic and professional purposes. The software functionality was verified through the output’s parameters of the stability of the simulations, provided by the software post-processing. The validation was developed through the analysis of the mesh independence, as well as the comparison of the results with similar computational and experimental models. Two different models were developed and analyzed being one more costly on time and computational capacity, but with a more complete governing equations formulation and another less expensive in terms of computational time but with promising results as well. The created geometry was simulated successfully, the error indicators were presented by the processing software with great stability. The comparison of the result with another similar commercial computational model from the literature presented low percentual differences. However, the results of the model confronted with the results from an experimental analysis were somehow of a significant percentual difference value. A future confrontation with other experimental models of the same geometry, as well as calibration and adjustment on the present simulations, are promising for the development of a validation of the computation model.