Numerical studies of multiphase mixing with application to some small-scale experiments Original Research Article

Numerous experimental and modelling studies of the premixing stage of a steam explosion are underway world-wide. While there is encouraging agreement between model results and experimental data for medium-scale tests, the agreement for small-scale tests has been less encouraging. In this paper, we show that this discrepancy can be accounted for by the need to use higher order differencing schemes for the convection terms in the conservation equations. When such schemes are used, the features of the experiment are reproduced. We present results obtained using various total variation diminishing schemes, quantify the effect of added mass and lift forces, and investigate the effect of interfacial drag modelling.