Abstract
The increase in fuel costs and looming restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions are driving the shipowner into reducing the ship’s resistance and required installed power. It was earlier reported that, merchant vessels operating at lower speeds, the frictional drag accounts of almost 70–80% of the total drag; thus, there is a strong demand for the reduction in the fluid frictional drag, especially in the marine transportation business. The use of air as a lubricant, by injecting below the plate or the body, which is famously known as microbubble drag reduction (MBDR) in order to reduce that frictional drag is an active research topic. Latest developments in this field suggests that there is a potential reduction of 80% in frictional drag in case of flat plates and about 30% reduction in case of ships, which encourages researchers to investigate further. In this study, 3D numerical investigations into frictional drag reduction by microbubbles were carried out in Star CCM+ on a channel for different flow velocities, different void fractions and different cross sections of flow at the injection point. This study is the first of its kind in which variation of coefficient of friction both in longitudinal and transverse directions was studied along with actual localized variation of void fraction at these points. The numerical framework consists of the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations and the standard k−ε turbulence model with standard wall function treatment, which is validated in both conditions of with and without microbubbles with the existing experimental data. The design exploration study was carried out for various flow speeds, injector flow rates, cross sections of the channel/heights of channels and of course void fractions. Coefficient of friction and void fraction values are measured at 12 longitudinal positions, and at each longitudinal position, 11 in number transverse and 10 in number depthwise positions were studied. In all, for one simulation, data at more than 1000 positions were collected. More than 60 simulations were carried out to understand the effect. From the study, it is concluded that since it is a channel flow and as the flow is restricted in confined region, effect of air injection is limited to smaller area in transverse direction as bubbles were not escaping in transverse direction.
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Acknowledgements
This research is well supported by SIEMENS Ltd. formerly known as CD ADAPCO. The authors express their sincere gratitude for their support. Moreover, the authors sincerely express their warm gratitude towards Mr. Sangmesh Biredar of CD ADAPCO for his invaluable inputs during the investigation using multiphase flow in Star CCM+.
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Sindagi, S., Vijayakumar, R., Nirali, S., Saxena, B.K. (2019). Numerical Investigation of Influence of Microbubble Injection, Distribution, Void Fraction and Flow Speed on Frictional Drag Reduction. In: Murali, K., Sriram, V., Samad, A., Saha, N. (eds) Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference in Ocean Engineering (ICOE2018). Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 22. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3119-0_17
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