ANALYSIS OF DIAMETER AND VELOCITY OF AIR BUBBLES UNDER DIFFERENT SURFACE TENSIONS: EXPERIMENTAL AND CFD STUDY

Abstract

In this work, the air bubbles generation in a flotation tank was evaluated using different surface tensions through experimental tests and by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The simulations were conducted using the FLUENT® 18.2 version software. To verify the model, the bubble velocity and the bubble diameter simulated data were compared to the experimental results, quantitatively and qualitatively. Through the experiments and by the CFD simulations, it was possible to infer the behavior and dynamics of the bubbles for the different surface tensions, with acceptable deviations between the bubble velocity data obtained experimentally and through simulations. The experimental and simulated diameters of bubbles followed the same trend.