A numerical method for the solution of two-fluid model equations

Pressure correction methods are commonly employed in implicit solution methods for two-fluid model equations. In many of these algorithms pressure and phase fractions are solved independently which may impair their robustness. This paper discusses a method for the fully implicit solution of the two-fluid model equations where the mass conservation equations are coupled to obtain a system that comprises both the pressure and phase. fraction corrections. The method is applied to several one- and two-dimensional test problems to illustrate its accuracy and applicability to this kind of calculations. The results agree well with the well-known analytical and numerical solutions from the literature. As a final illustration, the flow in a non-uniformly sparged laminar bubble column is calculated. The calculations are compared to experiments and are found to be in satisfactory agreement.