Creation and Evaluation of Construction Guidelines Using CFD for Low Pressure Plasma Gas Feed-in Systems to Homogenize the Precursor Gas Flow

The local gas-flow behavior is almost unknown for low pressure plasma systems, except parallel plate reactors for semiconductor purposes. To overcome this lack of knowledge, this study starts with the influence investigation of the gas feed-in systems technical layout on the homogeneity of the gas supply for large volume plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) chambers. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are used as a tool to determine velocity and pressure distribution inside the gas feed-in pipe as well as in the PECVD-chamber itself. The parameters varied were: flow rate, pipe length, number of holes, hole diameter and aspect ratio of the pipe section. The calculated pressure values are compared with the experimentally measured ones to validate the simulation results. An excellent conformity of the calculated and measured pressures is observed. With the aim to evaluate the homogeneity of gas distribution through the pipe holes the nonuniformity coefficient (Φ) was created. The results show the influence of each layout parameter in the homogeneity of the gas distribution. Hence in future correct technical layouts of gas feed-in systems can easily be applied. With these results construction guidelines has been formulated.

CFD simulation of effect of anode configuration on gas–liquid flow and alumina transport process in an aluminum reduction cell

Numerical simulations of gas–liquid two-phase flow and alumina transport process in an aluminum reduction cell were conducted to investigate the effects of anode configurations on the bath flow, gas volume fraction and alumina content distributions. An Euler–Euler two-fluid model was employed coupled with a species transport equation for alumina content. Three different anode configurations such as anode without a slot, anode with a longitudinal slot and anode with a transversal slot were studied in the simulation. The simulation results clearly show that the slots can reduce the bath velocity and promote the releasing of the anode gas, but can not contribute to the uniformity of the alumina content. Comparisons of the effects between the longitudinal and transversal slots indicate that the longitudinal slot is better in terms of gas–liquid flow but is disadvantageous for alumina mixing and transport process due to a decrease of anode gas under the anode bottom surface. It is demonstrated from the simulations that the mixing and transfer characteristics of alumina are controlled to great extent by the anode gas forces while the electromagnetic forces(EMFs) play the second role.

A three dimensional visualized physical simulation for natural gas charging in the micro-nano pore system

A micro-nano pore three-dimensional visualized real-time physical simulation of natural gas charging, in-situ pore-scale computation, pore network modelling, and apparent permeability evaluation theory were used to investigate laws of gas and water flow and their distribution, and controlling factors during the gas charging process in low-permeability(tight) sandstone reservoir. By describing features of gas-water flow and distribution and their variations in the micro-nano pore system, it is found that the gas charging in the low permeability(tight) sandstone can be divided into two stages, expansion stage and stable stage. In the expansion stage, the gas flows continuously first into large-sized pores then small-sized pores, and first into centers of the pores then edges of pores;pore-throats greater than 20 μm in radius make up the major pathway for gas charging. With the increase of charging pressure, movable water in the edges of large-sized pores and in the centers of small pores is displaced out successively. Pore-throats of 20-50 μm in radius and pore-throats less than 20 μm in radius dominate the expansion of gas charging channels at different stages of charging in turn, leading to reductions in pore-throat radius, throat length and coordination number of the pathway, which is the main increase stage of gas permeability and gas saturation. Among which, pore-throats 30-50 μm in radius control the increase pattern of gas saturation. In the stable stage, gas charging pathways have expanded to the maximum, so the pathways keep stable in pore-throat radius, throat length, and coordination number, and irreducible water remains in the pore system, the gas phase is in concentrated clusters, while the water phase is in the form of dispersed thin film, and the gas saturation and gas permeability tend stable. Connected pore-throats less than 20 μm in radius control the expansion limit of the charging pathways, the formation of stable gas-water distribution, and the maximum gas saturation. The heterogeneity of connected pore-throats affects the dynamic variations of gas phase charging and gas-water distribution. It can be concluded that the pore-throat configuration and heterogeneity of the micro-nanometer pore system control the dynamic variations of the low-permeability(tight) sandstone gas charging process and gas-water distribution features.