Numerical investigation of a thick plate restriction orifice on the pressure drop performance

This paper presents a numerical study on the thick plate restriction orifice on the pressure drop performance due to various orifice ratio, β. The restriction orifice was investigated using commercial software package namely, ANSYS. The restriction orifice was modelled using built-in modeler and simulated using Fluent module. The orifice ratio, β was varied in the range of 0.5 to 0.75. Various flow velocities were applied from 50 to 420 m/s. The fluid flow in the constriction was hydrocarbon in vapour phase. The preliminary results of discharge coefficients were compared with literature and theoretical values between a sharp-edged and thick plate orifice to show a consistent trend. The results yielded that as the Reynolds number, Re increases, the pressure drop performance increases exponentially. This is more prominent at high Re of 8.75 × 10 6 where the pressure drop increases by 63% from the baseline of Re number, 1.08 × 10 6 based on orifice ratio of 0.75. For a hydrocarbon with low rheological properties and high Re number, the orifice ratio, β is best at higher range of 0.75 which show a pressure drop of 0.18 MPa.