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Determination of the explosion severity parameters of biomass is crucial for the safety management and dust explosion risk assessment of biomass-processing industries. These are commonly determined following experimental tests in the 20L sphere according to the international standards. Recently, CFD simulations have emerged as a reliable alternative to predict the explosion behavior with good accuracy and reduced labor and capital. In this work, numerical simulations of biomass dust explosions are conducted with the open-source CFD code OpenFOAM. The multi-phase (gas-solid) flow is treated in an Eulerian-Lagrangian framework, using a two-way coupling regime and considering the reactions of biomass conversion (moisture evaporation, devolatilization, and char oxidation), the combustion of volatile gases, and convective and radiative heat transfer. The model is validated with pressure-time and concentration-dependent experimental measurements of two biomass samples. Results suggest that the characteristics of the cold-flow (ı.e., turbulence levels, actual dust concentration, spatial distribution of the dust cloud, and turbophoresis effect) govern the course of the explosion process, and depend strongly on particle size, dust concentration, and ignition delay time effects. These findings may be relevant in the design of better dust explosion testing devices and to the reexamination of the guidelines for the operation of the experiment. Finally, a thorough discussion on the explosion pressures, degree of biomass conversion, flame temperature, flame propagation patterns, and the dust agglomeration effect is presented.

The profiles used in wind turbine blades have a great effect on aerodynamic behavior. The incorporation in engineering methods of the three-dimensional and rotation effects obtained through numerical simulations has allowed to substantially improve the design of the blades. A further advance in the improvement of the models is the modification of the surface state of the profile due to environmental effects. The presence of erosion, dirt, or snow on the leading edge reduces the aerodynamic behavior of the profiles. Therefore, incorporating its effects would improve predictions. However, the implementation of these effects in numerical models is complex. In this work, only the effect of the ice/snow accretion will be taken into account. The study is made using the NREL PHASE VI experimental horizontal-axis turbine with the S809 profile. The BEM theory is applied to conduct accurate 2D numerical simulations firstly, of a clean profile (unmodified) and afterwards of accreted profile. The latter is constructed by the modification of the profile in advance, following indications of the Icing ANSYS Fluent tool. Simulations are conducted under a RANS numerical approach through an SST k-ω model, which properly predicts boundary layer behavior. CFD results are evaluated at different sections of the profile and compared against predictions from other authors in terms of aerodynamic coefficients. The simulations consistently predict an increase in the drag coefficient (CD +33%), and a decrease in the lift coefficient (CL -9%). The presence of ice accretion affects the airfoil performance along the whole blade span, being slightly more pronounced towards the root of the blade. This work presents a new engineering methodology able to accurately predict airfoil performance under ice accretion at a reduced computational cost.

Background Experimental analyses of the flow of drug particles inside the human lung usually require that the patient be exposed to radiation and also of expensive equipment that often lack of enough accuracy. Numerical calculations based on CFD (computational fluid dynamics) have been proven to be a valuable tool to analyze flows in diverse applications. Methods The complexity of the human lung disallows running calculations on complete lung models due to the large number of cells that would be required. In this work, using a proprietary methodology, particle deposition in the lung is simulated by reducing its multiple branches to a single path. Results The tested flow rates were 18, 30, and 75 L min-1 , which are equivalent to different respiratory rates varying from light activity to heavy exercise. Most of the particles are accumulated in the upper airways, mainly at the mouth and also at the confluence of the larynx and the trachea (epiglottis), while the remaining particles travel across the lung. The reported procedure allowed simulating the operation of the entire lung by means of a single individual path. Conclusions The obtained calculations are in good agreement with the experimental results found in the technical literature, thus showing that the model can provide a realistic description of the lung operation, while avoiding high computational costs. Moreover, the calculations suggest that particle sizes above 15 μm and inspiratory flows higher than 30 L min-1 must be avoided in order to allow drug particles to reach the lower airways.

CFD modeling research about the lung airflow with a complete resolution and an adequate accuracy at all scales requires a great amount of computational resources due to the vast number of necessary grid elements. As a result, a common practice is to conduct simplifications that allows to manage it with ordinary computational power. In this study, the implementation of a special boundary condition in order to develop a simplified single conductive lung airway model, which exactly represents the effect of the removed airways, is presented. The boundary condition is programmed in the open-source software OpenFOAM®, and the developed source code is presented in the proper syntax. After this description, modeling accuracy is evaluated under different flow rate conditions typical of human breathing processes, including both inspiration and expiration movements. Afterward, a validation process is conducted using results of a Weibel's model (0-4 generations) simulation for a medium flow rate of 50 L/min. Finally, a comparison against the proposed boundary condition implemented in the commercial code ANSYS Fluent is made, which highlights the benefits of using the free code toolbox. The specific contribution of this paper will be to show that OpenFOAM® developed model can perform even better than other commercial codes due to a precise implementation and coupling of the default solver with the in-house functions by virtue of the open-source nature of the code.