Effect of velocity on the clogging of particles in water-saturated porous media using the CFDDEM

Abstract

The clogging of particles in a slurry passing through a porous medium is mainly affected by the ratio of the particle diameter to the pore throat size of the medium. A previous study showed that the Stokes number and the particle concentration affect particle clogging and retention. Therefore, in this study, the effects of fluid velocity on particle clogging were investigated by analyzing the particle transport and retention in a homogeneous porous medium. The fluid-particle two-phase flow in a porous medium was simulated using the computational fluid dynamicsdiscrete element method. The results showed that increasing the fluid velocity of particles such that the Stokes number was almost equal to 1 increased the separation efficiency of particles. Further increasing the fluid velocity reduced the residence time, which reduced the separation efficiency of the particles.