2014, Anker, Felix, Ganesan, Sashikumaar, John, Volker, Schmeyer, Ellen

A direct discretization approach and an operator-splitting scheme are applied for the numerical simulation of a population balance system which models the synthesis of urea with a uni-variate population. The problem is formulated in axisymmetric form and the setup is chosen such that a steady state is reached. Both solvers are assessed with respect to the accuracy of the results, where experimental data are used for comparison, and the efficiency of the simulations. Depending on the goal of simulations, to track the evolution of the process accurately or to reach the steady state fast, recommendations for the choice of the solver are given.

2012, Bordás, Robert, John, Volker, Schmeyer, Ellen, Thévenin, Dominique

A droplet size distribution in a turbulent flow field is considered and modeled by means of a population balance system. This paper studies different numerical methods for the 4D population balance equation and their impact on an output of interest, the time-space-averaged droplet size distribution at the outlet which is known from experiments. These methods include different interpolations of the experimental data at the inlet, various discretizations in time and space, and different schemes for computing the aggregation integrals. It will be shown that notable changes in the output of interest might occur. In addition, the efficiency of the studied methods is discussed.