A new population balance equation solver for OpenFOAM
 

Dear Foamers,

Multiphase system can be simulated by the Eulerian-Eulerian (E-E) method and Eulerian-Lagrangian (E-L) method. The drawback of the traditional two-fluid method is that only one velocity can be employed for both phases (although a multi-fluid method can be constructed). Another promising method is to use Eulerian method for the continuous phase and a generalized population balance equation (GPBE) for the dispersed phase. The GPBE should be solved numerically by existing method, such as the quadrature-based moments method (QBMM). Therefore, we call this method as E-QBMM, although strictly speaking it is based on Euler framework. Recently, we implemented such solver in OpenFOAM and make it open-sourced [1]. This solver was also validated by several gas-liquid test cases [2]. On the other hand, I am very interested into the algorithm. Therefore, I wrote it down and hope it can help others to understand the theory of QBMM [3]. All equations can be found there.

I also would like to share some other interesting works, because the QBMM algorithm was extensively investigated/developed by the research group in Iowa State University, Ecole Polytechnique and others. For example, Alberto Passalacqua also developed his own PBM solver: OpenQBMM [4]. He also started a forum for QBMM users, which looks quite professional..http://openqbmm.freeforums.net/


[1] twoWayGPBEFoam: An open-source Eulerian QBMM solver for monokinetic bubbly flows: https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...10465519303728
[2] Comparison of Eulerian QBMM and classical Eulerian–Eulerian method for the simulation of polydisperse bubbly flows: https://aiche.onlinelibrary.wiley.co...1002/aic.16732
[3] Quadrature-based moment methods for the population balance equation: an algorithm review https://www.jianguoyun.com/p/DQwBtyMQ9s3ZBhjDrKYC
[4] https://github.com/OpenQBMM

Thank you sharonyue,

I think OpenQBMM is now part of OpenFOAM-v1912 as a submodule.

Does your code come as a submodule of OpenFOAM as well?

Is it inside OpenQBMM? Or do we need to compile it separately?

Hello Herpes,

Our code is not based on OpenQBMM. We implemented it from scratch and it should be compiled separately. I mentioned OpenQBMM is because 1) all of our algorithm belongs to QBMM. 2) I admire their effort to make it open source as well.

Hi Sharonyue
Thank you for your information.

What is the advantage of E-QBMM methods in comparison with two-phase euler-euler method (multi-fluid method) like twophaseeulerfoam?

Population balance in Openfoam 4.1
 

I am a new user of Openfoam and currently using reactingmultiphaseEulerfoam 4.1. I want to add Population Balance. How can I do that? Any lead would be appreciated.

I have the same plan for my project, have you found out how to set up a case with Population Balance into the openfoam case? thanks in advance

Hello there, sorry for my late reply. The latest OpenFOAM provides a sectional method. U can have a look.

We also implemented the QBMM for gas-particle flow, please see the following link:

https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1e8bP7QGmEkfF
[Implementation of CHyQMOM in OpenFOAM for the simulation of non-equilibrium gas-particle flows under one-way and two-way coupling]

How much overlap would this have with OpenQBMM? Where possible it would make sense to combine efforts.

plotting the population of bubbles
 

do you know how to plot the bubble population in the new openfoam version? i want to plot the bubble population from the population balance tutorial that mentioned in this article https://openfoam.org/guides/populati...ance-openfoam/

some sources said that to plot the population i can use the NDF plot but i have no idea to do it with openfoam output data

Do you have a repo for your code (github, other)? Would you mind sharing it?

Regarding the solver OF version compatibility
 

Can the twoWayGPBEfoam be compiled in open foam version 9?

is it for openfoam.org or openfoam.com software?

I am getting an error when I tried to complile the code in OpenFoam v7.

In file included from oneWayGPBEFoam.C:64:0:
pEqn.H: In function ‘int main(int, char**)’:
pEqn.H:29:21: error: ‘class Foam::fvMesh’ has no member named ‘solver’; did you mean ‘solvers_’?
pEqn.solve(mesh.solver(p.select(piso.finalInnerIte r())));
^~~~~~
solvers_
/opt/openfoam7/wmake/rules/General/transform:25: recipe for target 'Make/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/oneWayGPBEFoam.o' failed
make[1]: *** [Make/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/oneWayGPBEFoam.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/mnt/d/solver/twoWayGPBEFoam/solvers/oneWayGPBEFoam'
/opt/openfoam7/wmake/makefiles/apps:39: recipe for target 'oneWayGPBEFoam' failed
make: *** [oneWayGPBEFoam] Error 2

I tried to compile this in /mnt/d/customsolver

Was this the issue? Should I take this folder in the solver directory and then run ./Allwmake

Problem Sorted
 

I was trying to compile this in the Windows WSL Linux extension (Ubuntu 18.04 LTS). But it gave me an error, so I switch to OF v6. It compiled successfully.