Separation and Purication Technology 73 (2010) 302309

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Separation and Purication Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/seppur

Modeling of a two-phase countercurrent pulsed sieve plate extraction

columnA hybrid CFD and radiotracer RTD analysis approach
Ghiyas Ud Din a,c, , Imran Raq Chughtai b , Mansoor Hameed Inayat b ,
Iqbal Hussain Khan c , Nasrullah Khan Qazi d
a
Department of Nuclear Engineering, Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences [PIEAS], P.O. Nilore, Islamabad, Pakistan
b
Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences [PIEAS], P.O. Nilore, Islamabad, Pakistan
c
Isotope Application Division, Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology [PINSTECH], P.O. Nilore, Islamabad, Pakistan
d
Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology [PINSTECH], P.O. Nilore, Islamabad, Pakistan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) based model of a two-phase countercurrent pulsed sieve plate
Received 19 February 2010 extraction column has been developed. EulerEuler multiphase ow model and standard k turbulence
Received in revised form 14 April 2010 model for multiphase ow were used. Sieve plates in the column were modeled using the porous media
Accepted 15 April 2010
formulation. The coefcients of porous media were evaluated using radiotracer RTD analysis data. A pulse
generation model was developed and incorporated to simulate the effect of pulses in the system. The
Keywords:
developed simulation approach has been proved successful and it provided the possibility of modeling
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
the subject system with lesser computational resources. The models used for CFD simulation of the system
Radiotracer
Residence Time Distribution (RTD)
were suitable and simulation results were found 72.17% of the radiotracer experiment.
Liquidliquid extraction 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Liquidliquid extraction is a process of separation of con-
stituents of a liquid phase by contacting it with another immiscible
liquid phase. Petroleum, nuclear, chemical, metallurgical, phar-
maceutical, food processing and bio-processing industries are the
major beneciaries of this technology. Two major categories of
liquidliquid extraction equipments are single-stage and multi-
stage extractors [1]. Single-stage equipments provide one stage
contact in a single or a combination of devices. A mixer-settler is a
typical example of these kinds of equipments. In multi-stage equip-
ments, many stages or their equivalents may be incorporated into
a single device. Centrifugal extractors and column type contactors
are typical examples of multi-stage equipments. The column type
contactors are commonly used in chemical industries. These can be
classied as static columns (e.g. sieve tray, randomly packed and
structure packed columns) and agitated columns (e.g. rotating disk
contactor, Scheibel column, Kuhni column, Karr column and pulsed
column). Van Dijck [2] introduced the concept of pulsed columns.
He classied them as reciprocating perforated plate column and
liquid pulsed column depending upon the mechanism of pulsing
Corresponding author at: Department of Nuclear Engineering, Pakistan Institute
of Engineering and Applied Sciences [PIEAS], P.O. Nilore, Islamabad 45650, Pakistan.
Tel.: +92 51 2207381; fax: +92 51 2208070.
E-mail addresses: ghiyasuddin@hotmail.com, fac192@pieas.edu.pk (G.U. Din).
involved. Pulsed sieve plate extraction column, which is the subject
of this paper, nds a great deal of applications in the eld of haz-
ardous materials due to the absence of mechanical moving parts
inside the column and facility of having the pulsing mechanism
away from the column. The pulsation of uids inside the sieve tray
column produces shearing and turbulence causing the breakage
of droplets and as a consequence, the interfacial area required for
mass transfer operation is increased. Also, phases in such columns
are subject to ow counter currently to achieve high concentration
gradients for efcient mass transfer.
The design of a pulsed sieve plate extraction column is generally
based on HTUNTU concept in which ow models such as mixers in
series with back mixing and axial dispersion model are employed.
But these models are too simple to describe the real hydrodynamics
of such systems, as they are not capable of visualizing the ow pat-
tern inside the system. Detailed experimental investigations have
been reported with reference to the hydrodynamic characteristics
of a pulsed sieve plate extraction column as a function of operating
parameters using radiotracer technology [35].
In this modern era, industry is looking for more predictive tech-
niques and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a relatively new
but more powerful approach that provides detailed spatial distri-
bution of ow elds. It can provide three-dimensional visualization
of a system by creating maps of velocity vectors, streamlines or iso-
value contours, etc. The exciting CFD results are being questioned
by industries about reliability due to the lack of experimental data
for model verication and validation. This is the reason why CFD

1383-5866/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.seppur.2010.04.017
 G.U. Din et al. / Separation and Purication Technology 73 (2010) 302309
models have to be veried and validated by experimental tech-
niques and the trend is to combine experimental techniques and
CFD in order to obtain reliable quantitative results for complex
industrial processes.
The history of interest in the CFD simulation of pulsed columns
started somewhere in early 1990s. Hydrodynamic parameters of
such columns have been investigated using the numerical approach
by various researchers. The ow patterns generated in a disc and
doughnut pulsed column for the steady and turbulent case were
simulated [6]. Some design parameter issues for single-phase ow
in a disc and doughnut pulsed extraction column were reported
and a correlation for the axial mixing as a function of geometrical
parameters and pulsation conditions was developed by numer-
ical experiments [7,8]. Mathematical description and numerical
simulation for the ow structure, velocity elds and ow energy
parameters of single-phase pulsed turbulent ow in a pulsed
extraction column with discs and doughnut were presented [9].
This study was extended to two-phase ow and Lagrangian simula-
tion strategy was evaluated to measure the RTD of droplets [10,11].
The simulation results were compared to the single drop video
experiments that were found around 20% in agreement. Simula-
tion of a disc and doughnut pulsed extraction column was carried
out by incorporating Eulerian approach and turbulence using the
CFD software ASTRID and the continuous phase velocity, turbulent
kinetic energy and holdups were compared with the experimen-
tal results [12]. The turbulent energy parameters for single-phase
ow in a pulsed extraction column with discs and doughnuts were
studied [13].
A CFD model based on EulerEuler approach and standard k
turbulence model was presented to understand the hydrodynam-
ics of a pulsed extraction column with sieves and down comers
[14]. The holdups calculated by CFD simulation were compared
with those of experimental.
CFD simulation of pulsed sieve plate extraction column with
specied geometry as given in Section 2.1 has not been worked out
previously. The hydrodynamics of such systems is different with
those of pulsed columns with discs and doughnuts and sieve plates
with down comers. To handle a two-phase ow through the sieve
plates, a porous media formulation approach has been adopted.
This approach has also not been explored by previous researchers
for such type of ows.
The specic objective of this paper is to model a pulsed sieve
plate extraction column using a hybrid CFD and RTD analysis
approach with lesser computational resources. The simulation is
carried out using the commercial CFD software package FLUENT 6.3
[15]. Radiotracer RTD analysis experiment is carried out to evaluate
the holdup of dispersed phase in the system. The sieve plates in the
column are modeled using the porous media formulation while the
coefcients of porous media are evaluated using radiotracer RTD
analysis experimental data.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Experimental setup and operation
The schematic diagram of pulsed sieve plate extraction column
under investigation is shown in Fig. 1. The internal diameter of the
column is 5 102 m and height is 2.0 m. Two separating chambers,
one at the top and the other at the bottom of the column are also
part of this apparatus. The mode of operation of the pulsed sieve
plate extraction column is countercurrent in which the light phase
(from a feed vessel) is fed to the bottom of the column through a
metering pump. It ows upwards through the sieve plate column
and encounters with the heavy phase here. After passing through
the column, the light phase separates out from the two-phase mix-
303
Table 1
Specication of the pulsed sieve plate extraction column and geometric parameters
of the simplied model for CFD simulation.
Internal diameter of the column (m) 5 102
Height of the column (m) 2
Number of sieve plates 38
Plate spacing (m) 5 102
Diameter of hole in sieve plate (m) 2 103
Average number of holes in sieve plate 140
Average free area in a sieve plate (%) 25
Diameter of central rod (m) 0.8 102
Number of separating chambers 2
Diameter of separating chamber (m) 9.4 102
Number of feed vessels 2
Number of collection vessels 2
Diameter of the piston of pulsing unit (m) 6.62 102
Height of the column for CFD simulation (m) 0.25
Number of sieve plates for CFD simulation 4
Height of separating chamber for CFD simulation (m) 0.286
ture in the upper separating chamber and overows into the light
phase collection vessel. Similarly, the heavy phase from another
feed vessel is fed to the top of the column through a metering pump.
The heavy phase ows downwards through the column and sep-
arates out from the light phase in the lower separating chamber.
The heavy phase then rises through the balance leg (Fig. 1) and is
collected in the heavy phase collection vessel. The column is t-
ted with regularly spaced (5 102 m) sieve plates mounted on
a rod of diameter 0.8 102 m at the center of the column. The
sieve plates help to increase the interfacial area between the two
immiscible liquids by breaking the droplets of dispersed phase. A
pulse unit located at the base of lower separating chamber provides
pulses to the process uids thus increasing the intimate contact.
Variations in frequency and amplitude of the pulse affect the inten-
sity of contact between the two immiscible phases. Table 1 gives a
complete specication of the pulsed sieve plate extraction column
under investigation.
In present investigations, the column is operated with water as
dispersed and kerosene as continuous phase [3,4]. This method of
operation forms a liquidliquid interface in the lower separating
chamber at about 10 cm below the light phase inlet. The position of
this interface is shown in Fig. 1. This interface level is stabilized with
the help of the balance leg before the start of an experiment. Fur-
ther, depending upon the topology of the two phases, a pulsed sieve
plate extraction column can be operated in mixer-settler, disper-
sion or emulsion modes [16,17]. In present experiment, the column
is operated in the emulsion regime, i.e. dispersed phase (water)
remained dispersed throughout the plate stack and no coalescence
into layers occurred at the plates.
2.2. Residence Time Distribution analysis
RTD analysis of dispersed phase was carried out using the radio-
tracer technique. For this purpose, the column was set to operate
at a dispersed phase supercial velocity (Ud = 0.34 102 m/s), con-
tinuous phase supercial velocity (Uc = 0.37 102 m/s), pulsation
frequency (f = 1.4 s1 ) and pulsation amplitude (A = 1 102 m). To
label the dispersed phase, 99m Tc radiotracer (0.5 mCi) was injected
in the form of an instantaneous pulse at location D1 (Fig. 1).
The movement of dispersed phase was traced by monitoring the
radiotracer with the help of lead-collimated scintillation detectors
mounted at the inlet (D2 ) and outlet (D3 ) of the column as shown in
Fig. 1. The experimental mean residence time (MRT) of the system
was calculated by the difference of rst moments of outlet and inlet
response curves. Mathematical expression for the rst moment in
304 G.U. Din et al. / Separation and Purication Technology 73 (2010) 302309

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of pulsed sieve plate extraction column.

 G.U. Din et al. / Separation and Purication Technology 73 (2010) 302309
Fig. 2. Typical normalized RTD function curves at the input (D2 ) and output (D3 )
with model output response of dispersed phase in response to an instantaneous
pulse injection at (D1 ).
discrete form can be written as:
 carrying out the CFD simulation, the pulsed sieve plate extraction
ti Ci ti
i Section 2.2.
First moment =  (1)
Ci ti
i
where C is the tracer concentration (counts/s in present case); t is
the time of measurement (s); t is the time interval between the
two measurements (s); i = 0, 1, 2, 3, . . .
Overall holdup of the dispersed phase was calculated on the
basis of above calculated MRT using the following relationship:
tQd
Hd =
VR
where Hd is the dispersed phase holdup; t is the mean residence
time; Qd is the dispersed phase ow rate; VR is the effective reactor
volume.
The hydrodynamics of the dispersed phase was simulated using
the axial dispersion model (ADM). Fig. 2 shows typical normalized
RTD function curves obtained at the input (D2 ) and output (D3 ) with
model output response of dispersed phase in response to an instan-
taneous pulse injection at (D1 ). The complete aspects of radiotracer
RTD analysis can be seen in Din et al. [4].
2.3. CFD simulation strategy of pulsed sieve plate extraction
column
The ow inside pulsed sieve plate extraction column is two-
phase, turbulent and inherently transient due to the presence of
pulses. Moreover, complex hydrodynamics in these columns need
reasonable resolution of grid points to visualize ow pattern inside
the system and meet the convergence criteria. Therefore, a 3D
simulation of the subject system on full scale is computationally
expensive and very demanding with reference to computational
machine time and requirement of adequate memory for data pro-
cessing and storage. Keeping in view this, a hybrid approach based
on the CFD modeling using FLUENT 6.3 software and radiotracer
RTD tracing has been developed. The strategy for this approach was
based on simulation on a 2D axisymmetric reduced domain con-
sisting of four sieve plates only. As the whole length of the column
was equipped with similar sieve plates at equal distances, there-
fore, the ow was considered identical in the rest of the column.
Since, it was not possible to model the sieve plates each consisting
of approximately 140 holes (Table 1) in 2D axisymmetric domain,
therefore, the sieve plate was modeled by assuming it as a thin
layer of porous medium. The porous media model representing the
305
actual sieve plate has a thickness of 1 mm and porosity 25% as that
of the sieve plate. The coefcients in the porous media model were
evaluated using experimental values of volume fraction obtained
by the radiotracer RTD analysis technique (Section 2.2) and operat-
ing velocities in the system. The complete modeling aspects of this
porous medium are described in Section 2.5. As it is the rst attempt
towards CFD modeling of pulsed sieve plate extraction column with
the above-mentioned geometry and models, the knowledge gained
through this modeling may help in understanding the hydrody-
namics of industrial scale equipment.
A 2D axisymmetric geometry of the pulsed sieve plate extraction
column was created as per dimensions given in Table 1 using the
processor GAMBIT. A ner mesh was created inside and in the vicin-
ity of porous media in order to achieve greater numerical accuracy
and better ow visualization in the regions of maximum velocity
gradients. The process of this mesh generation has resulted in a
33,578 unstructured quadrilateral cells for the complete geometry
of the column along with separators. Fig. 3(a) shows the mesh gen-
erated into the geometry along with a magnied view of the mesh
generated in the porous media and area between the media. While
column was considered to operate as per specications given in
EulerEuler multiphase ow model was chosen for CFD simu-
lation of the subject system. This model solves the conservation of
mass and momentum equation for each phase. The conservation
equations for mass and momentum can be written as:
 n
(q q ) + .(q q vq ) = (mpq mqp ) + Sq (3)
t
p=1
(2) (q q vq ) + .(q q vq vq )
t

n
= q p + . q + q q g + (Rpq + mpq vpq mqp vqp )
p=1
+ (Fq + Flift,q + Fvm,q ) (4)
This equation includes the effects of drag, external body,
lift and virtual mass forces. Expressions for these forces along
with the detail of terminologies involved in these equations are
given in FLUENT Documentation [15] and Ranade [18]. In the
present study, only the drag force is taken into account as other
forces are very small in liquidliquid type of ows in column
type contactors. Schiller and Naumann model available in FLU-
ENT 6.3 software was used for the evaluation of drag function.
There are various turbulence models available in the FLUENT
6.3 software to describe the effects of turbulent uctuations in
the velocities of phases and other scalar quantities. Standard
k turbulence model for each phase was chosen to model the
turbulence in the system. A detail of the transport equations
involved in this turbulence model is available in the literature
[15,18].
The light phase (kerosene) and the heavy phase (water) were
taken as continuous and dispersed phase, respectively. The diame-
ter of the droplet was assumed constant as 0.005 m. The operating
pressure was set to 101,325 Pa (1 atm) at the bottom right corner
of the domain (Fig. 3(a)) and the gravity was set to 9.8 m/s2 in the
negative direction of x-axis in the operating condition panel. Spec-
ied velocity boundary condition was used at the inlets and outlets
of dispersed and continuous phases with magnitude and appro-
priate direction of ow. Specied velocity boundary condition was
also provided at the bottom of the column as shown in Fig. 3(a)
and a User Dened Function (UDF) was associated to the velocity
306 G.U. Din et al. / Separation and Purication Technology 73 (2010) 302309

Fig. 3. Computational grid and boundary conditions: (a) complete geometry of the column; (b) single-hole geometry for estimation of porous media coefcients.

of water to represent the generation of pulses inside the column.
The pulse generation model that has been written in C++ and asso-
ciated with this boundary condition is given in Section 2.4. Pressure
outlet boundary with zero Pascal gauge pressure was established
at the top of the column as per schematic of the column. A no-slip
boundary condition was used for the walls of the column and inlets
of both phases. The coefcients of porous medium were evaluated
as described in Section 2.5 and assigned in the boundary condition
panel.
Discretization was carried out by using the second order upwind
scheme for momentum, turbulent kinetic energy and turbulent dis-
sipation rate while rst order upwind discretization scheme was
used for the calculation of volume fraction. Phase coupled SIMPLE
scheme was utilized for pressurevelocity coupling. Suitable val-
ues of under relaxation factors for pressure, momentum, density,
body force, volume fraction, turbulent kinetic energy, turbulent
dissipation rate and turbulent viscosity were provided for the cal-
culation. The solution was initialized by assuming a portion of the
lower separating chamber, at 10 cm below the light phase inlet, to
be lled with dispersed phase (water). This methodology of ini-
tialization has been adopted to establish a liquidliquid interface
as described in Section 2.1. All the equations mentioned above
were solved simultaneous with size of the time step 0.01 s while
100 hydrodynamic iterations were performed in each of the time
step.
2.4. Pulse generation model
Flow inside the pulsed sieve plate extraction column is oscil-
lating due to the operation of pulsing unit at the bottom. The
timevelocity prole generated due to the presence of pulses can
 G.U. Din et al. / Separation and Purication Technology 73 (2010) 302309 307

Fig. 4. The pulse velocity prole provided as UDF.

be written as:

Dp2
u(t) = Af cos(2ft) (5)
Ds2

where u is the velocity; t is the time; A is the amplitude of pulsation;

f is the frequency of pulsation; Dp is the diameter of piston; Ds is
the diameter of separator.
This velocity prole in Eq. (5) is plotted in Fig. 4 and it is associ-
ated as a UDF written in C++ to describe the velocity of water at the
bottom of the system (Section 2.3).

Fig. 6. Contours of stream function of dispersed phase at (a) t = 36.3 s and (b)
t = 36.6 s.

2.5. Modeling of the sieve plates

The sieve plates were modeled by considering them as porous

media. The porous media is modeled by the addition of a momen-
tum sink term in the momentum balance equation for each phase
and coordinate direction [15]:


3 
3
1
Si = Dij vj + Cij vmag vj (6)
2
j=1 j=1

where Si is source term for the ith (x, y or z) momentum equation,

Fig. 5. Contours of volume fraction of dispersed phase (water).
and D, C are prescribed matrices. It represents the loss of pressure
per unit length, which is proportional to the velocity or square of
the velocity in the porous region. First term in Eq. (6) is a viscous
loss term (also known as the Darcy Law) while the second term is
the inertial loss term.
The porous media parameters (D and C) for the present system
are not available in the literature. Therefore, a separate simulation
strategy was adopted for the calculation of these parameters (Eq.
(6)) to model the actual sieve plate. A 2D axis symmetric geome-
try of 0.05 m length and consisting of a single hole of radius 1 mm
along with 25% open area at the center was constructed in GAMBIT
as shown in Fig. 3(b). The closed area around the hole was repre-
sented as wall while symmetry boundary condition was assigned
at the periphery of this geometry. A mixture consisting of 35% of
water as dispersed phase and 65% of kerosene as continuous phase
308 G.U. Din et al. / Separation and Purication Technology 73 (2010) 302309
Fig. 7. Contours of stream function of continuous phase at (a) t = 36.25 s and (b)
t = 36.7 s.
was forced to move from top to bottom of this geometry to simulate
the ow through a single hole of the sieve plate. This information
regarding the proportions of water and kerosene was gathered from
the radiotracer RTD analysis experimental data. Therefore, this
methodology has been named as a hybrid approach based on CFD
simulation and radiotracer RTD analysis. Specied velocity bound-
ary condition was used on the top and outow boundary condition
was assigned on the bottom of this geometry. The mixture of water
and kerosene was made to ow through this single-hole geometry
for a range of velocities dened by the pulse velocity (Fig. 4) and
ow rates of phases. All other models used for this simulation were
similar to that of the complete simulation of the system, i.e. multi-
phase EulerEuler model and standard k turbulence model were
invoked. The pressure drop across the single hole was calculated
for each of the velocity as mentioned earlier by steady state solu-
tion. This pressure gradient may be considered equivalent to the
pressure gradient across the sieve plate with 25% open area. As the
pressure gradient was found to be a linear function of velocity with
the following equation:
p
= 1 107 v 2190.5
x
R2 = 0.9939
Fig. 8. Volume fraction of dispersed phase in the pulsed sieve plate column calcu-
lated by CFD.
Therefore, it was concluded that viscous loss term is playing a
major role in the subject system while the effect of inertial loss
term can be neglected. The coefcient of v in the above equation is
basically D in Eq. (6). Therefore:
D = 1 1007
where  is the volumetric average viscosity of the mixture and can
be calculated as:
 = 0.65k + 0.35w (8)
 = 1.91 1003 kg/m s
Therefore,
D = 5.23 109
where k and w are viscosities of kerosene and water, respec-
tively. The parameter D as evaluated above was incorporated in the
boundary condition panel for porous media in the axial direction
while it is assumed innity in the radial direction.
3. Results and discussion
Fig. 5 shows the contours of volume fraction of dispersed phase
(water) inside the pulsed sieve plate extraction column at a par-
ticular time (t = 36.7 s) when ow conditions are developed. It has
been observed that a portion of the lower separating chamber at
10 cm below the continuous phase inlet is lled with dispersed
phase and a liquidliquid interface has been established. This inter-
face level was basically established while initializing the solution
(Section 2.3) and it remained there throughout the simulation
time. Therefore, this simulation strategy has been proved identi-
cal to the experimental methodology of creating and stabilizing a
liquidliquid interface during the experiment (Section 2.1).
Fig. 5 also shows the entrance of dispersed phase from the inlet
and its downward movement through the continuous phase under
gravity where it encounters four regularly spaced sieve plates. It
has been observed that the dispersed phase is accumulated inside
and in the vicinity of sieve plates. It is because of the reason that
each of the sieve plates behaves as a momentum sink and causes
a pressure drop across the plate. It has been further observed that
accumulation of dispersed phase volume on the two middle sieve
plates is almost identical while it is different on the top and bottom
(7) plates. This difference may be due to the reason that ow conditions
are different before the top and after the bottom sieve plates. The
similarity in the behavior of two middle plates has supported the
assumption of reducing the size of the computational domain, i.e.
 G.U. Din et al. / Separation and Purication Technology 73 (2010) 302309
the ow can be considered identical on each of the sieve plates (Sec-
tion 2.3). The droplets of the dispersed phase after passing through
the sieve plates enter into the lower separating chamber, join the
liquidliquid interface and nally travel out of the system through
the dispersed phase outlet.
Fig. 6(a and b) shows the contours of stream functions of dis-
persed phase inside the system at two particular instants when
the ow conditions are developed. These contour plots show re-
circulations of the dispersed phase droplets inside the system.
These re-circulations are due to the presence of pulsation asso-
ciated at the bottom of the column. A different ow pattern has
been observed in the lower and upper part of the column at time
t = 36.3 s (Fig. 6a). This difference is due to the reason that this ow
pattern has been observed at a particular time and the position of
re-circulations may be different at some other instant. The same
phenomenon can be observed from Fig. 6(b). It is due to the pres-
ence of these re-circulations that a long tail has been observed in
the RTD analysis curve (Fig. 2). These re-circulations also cause an
increase in axial dispersion of dispersed phase.
Fig. 7(a and b) shows the contours of stream functions of con-
tinuous phase at two particular instants upon development of
the ow conditions. These contour plots also show the presence
of re-circulations. These ow patterns are also different due to
the similar reason as described for the case of dispersed phase.
Fig. 7(a and b) also shows re-circulation in the lower separat-
ing chamber and it remained there throughout the simulation
after the ow conditions are developed. It may be due the pres-
ence of sharp edge in front of the continuous phase ow when
it enters from the lower separating chamber to the sieve plate
column.
Fig. 8 shows the volume fraction of dispersed phase as a function
of time inside the sieve plate column after the ow has been devel-
oped. An increasing and decreasing trend in the dispersed phase
volume has been observed. This trend is due to the pulses asso-
ciated to the ow of phases inside the system. An average value
of 25.26% of dispersed phase volume has been observed which is
72.17% of the experimental value (35%) obtained by radiotracer RTD
analysis under the same operating conditions. This result has been
obtained after adopting the assumptions as described in Section
2.3. A more precise value of dispersed phase holdup is expected by
implementing more real conditions but at the cost of computational
resources.
4. Conclusions
A hybrid approach based upon the CFD and radiotracer RTD trac-
ing has been developed which proved successful to study the
hydrodynamic aspects of pulsed sieve plate extraction column.
The CFD modeling of the system was based on the EulerEuler
multiphase model, standard k turbulence model, porous media
model and pulse generation model. These models were found
suitable in achieving the research objective and simulation
results were found 72.17% of the experimental value.
309
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the Higher Education Commis-
sion [HEC] for nancial support in accomplishment of this study.
The authors are greatly indebted to the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) for providing RTD analysis software pack-
age. The cooperation extended by IAEA through its Regional Project
RAS/8111 entitled Diagnosing industrial multiphase systems by
process visualization using radiotracers and sealed sources is appre-
ciated. The technical assistance extended by Pakistan Institute of
Nuclear Science and Technology [PINSTECH] and Pakistan Institute
of Engineering and Applied Sciences [PIEAS] is thankfully acknowl-
edged.
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