Vol. 55 No. 2 (2018)   New Technologies
Technical Papers

Development of Simulation Tool for the Prediction of Large Particles Transport in Liquid Flow

TAKESHI SANO
MARTINO RECLARI
TSUYOSHI NONAKA
JUNICHI SUEMATSU
MASAO SHIMOKAWA
MASAO KOMATSU

During the extraction of mineral resources, mixtures of water and rocks are often used to transport large quantities of ore. The pressure losses in a pipeline conveying this kind of mixtures change continuously due to the large variations of the size, density and concentration of the rocks transported. Therefore, continuous operation at a constant flow is often challenging. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. developed a solid and liquid multiphase flow simulator that evaluates the unsteady motion of particles. The predictions are compared with the measurements effectuated during a subsea mining test, showing a remarkable agreement. This confirms that this simulator can be applied to quantitatively evaluate the risk of unplanned outages.