Author(s)

Hideharu Takahashi¹, San Shwin², Ari Hamdani¹, Nobuyuki Fujisawa³, Hiroshige Kikura¹

¹Laboratory for Advanced Nuclear Energy, Institute of Innovative Research, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan.
²Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan.
³Department of Mechanical Engineering, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan.

The secondary flow downstream of a triple elbow layout was studied experimentally and numerically to visualize the flow behavior under swirling inlet flow conditions. The inlet swirling condition was generated by a swirl generator, consisting of a rotary pipe and honeycomb assembly. The experiments were carried out in turbulent water flow condition at Reynolds number Re = 1 × 10⁴ and inlet swirl intensity S = 1. Ultrasonic measurements were taken at four locations downstream of the third elbow. The two-dimensional velocity field of the flow field was measured using the phased array ultrasonic velocity profiler technique to evaluate the flow field with separation. Furthermore, a numerical simulation was performed and its results were compared with the experimental data. The numerical result was obtained by solving three-dimensional, Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with the renormalization group k-ε turbulence model. The experimental results confirmed that the swirling flow condition modified the size of the separation region downstream of the third elbow. A qualitative comparison between the experimental and CFD simulation results of the averaged velocity field downstream of the third elbow showed similar tendency on reverse flow.

Swirling Flow, Triple Elbow, Ultrasound, Phased Array Sensor, Velocity Profile, CFD, Numerical Simulation

Takahashi, H. , Shwin, S. , Hamdani, A. , Fujisawa, N. and Kikura, H. (2020) Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Swirling Flow on Triple Elbow Pipe Layout. Journal of Flow Control, Measurement & Visualization, 8, 45-62. doi: 10.4236/jfcmv.2020.82003.