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ICAMCE-2023 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2529 (2023) 012009 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2529/1/012009

Flow Characteristics of Orifice Plate in Vertical Multistage

Flash Evaporator for Waste Heat Recovery

Yifan Sun1, Huaizhe Yan2*, Lin Wang3, Haihua Shen4, Ziyun Xu5, Fenglei Fang6,
Haoran Li7, and Hui Li8.
1–6
Jiaxing Power Supply Company of State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Co., Ltd.,
Jiaxing, Zhejiang, 314000, China;
7–8
School of Energy Power and Mechanical Engineering, North China Electric Power
University, Baoding, Hebei, 071003, China;
*
Corresponding author’s e-mail: yan_huaizhe@zj.sgcc.com.cn and jxepsc@126.com.

Abstract: A vertical multistage flash device uses orifice plates as pressure isolation devices, so
wastewater flows from the upper stage to the next stage by its gravity, which can significantly
lower the system’s surface area. To study the resistance characteristics of the flash flow during
wastewater flowing through the pressure isolation device, a flow and flash model for the
wastewater in an orifice was developed and the corresponding flash process was numerically
investigated by FLUENT. The effects of the inlet temperature of wastewater, flash pressure, and
orifice thickness on the flash were analyzed. The results show that the closer to the orifice outlet
we are, the lower the temperature of wastewater and the larger the vapor volume fraction become.
While the temperature is lower, the vapor volume fraction is larger near the orifice wall than it
is towards the center. While the temperature reduction of wastewater is not immediately apparent,
the vapor volume fraction in the orifice increases as the pressure differential between the orifice’s
input and output increases.

1. Introduction
The conventional multistage flash technology has a large equipment footprint and high engineering
investment, and the engineering application is limited by the site. A vertical multistage flash structure
is proposed, as shown in Fig. 1. It uses several orifice plates to grade and isolate pressure, which is
reduced step by step from top to bottom, and wastewater flows from the upper stage to the next stage by
gravity for flash evaporation. The vertical design of each level makes use of space to make the
wastewater flash fully. At present, scholars mainly focus on the resistance characteristics of two-phase
flow when wastewater flash occurs in the pipeline. To forecast mass flow based on experimental data,
researchers [1–6] have studied the mass flow characteristics of flash when various refrigerants flow
through short tubes with various aspect ratios. The two-phase flow properties of lithium bromide
wastewater passing through the orifice plate were experimentally investigated by Wang [7]. Nilpueng
et al. [8, 9] used HFP-134A as the working medium and short tubes with different aspect ratios for
experimental research, and proposed the empirical research and formulas for predicting mass flow by
developing a two-fluid model to forecast the short tubes when non-blocking flow occurred in short tubes
and blocked flow occurred, respectively. To sum up, the existing empirical models and conclusions are
not sufficient to reveal the flow flash characteristics of saline solution in the orifice when the pressure
difference is large. This research takes orifice holes as the research object and establishes the numerical

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ICAMCE-2023 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2529 (2023) 012009 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2529/1/012009

calculation model of water flow flash in orifice holes. Additionally, the single-hole flow resistance test
bench of orifice pressure isolation simulates the distribution characteristics of the flow field in orifice
holes and analyzes the impact of inlet temperature, flash pressure, and orifice thickness on flash
characteristics to confirm the accuracy of the established model.
Leve 1
level

plate
Orifice
Leve 2

Leve n

Figure 1. The pressure isolation structure diagram of the orifice plate

2. The mathematical model and numerical simulation

2.1. The multiphase flow model

This work uses water as the working medium to study. To investigate the water’s flash flow properties
inside the tiny hole, the mixture model is utilized. The basic governing equation is as follows:
(1) Mass conservation equation of the mixed-phase is:
∂
( ρm ) + ∇ ⋅ ( ρm vm ) = 0
∂t , (1)
where vm is the average velocity (m/s); ρm is the gas-liquid mixture density (kg/m3).
(2) Momentum conservation equation for the mixed-phase is:
∂  2  
( ρm vm ) + ∇ ⋅ ( ρm vm vm ) = ∇ ⋅  μm ( ∇vm + ∇vmT ) + ρm g + ∇ ⋅   ρkα k vdr ,k vdr ,k  + F − ∇p , (2)
∂t  k =1 

where vdr,k is slip speed of the KTH phase (m/s); F is the volume force N; μm is mixing viscosity (Pa·s);
ρk is KTH phase density (kg/m3); αk is KTH phase volume fraction (%). When k is 1 and 2, respectively,
l is for the liquid phase and g is for the gas phase.
(3) Energy conservation equation of the mixed-phase is:
2
∂ 2
α
k =1
k ρk Ek + ∇ ⋅  α k vk ( rk Ek + p ) = ∇ ⋅ ( keff ∇T ) + SE ,
∂t k =1 
(3)

where SE is the energy source term J; keff is thermal conductivity effectively (W/(m2·K)); p is pressure
(MPa); Ek is specific total energy (J/kg).
(4) Volume fraction equation of water vapor is:
∂
∂t
(α g ρg ) + ∇ ⋅ (α g ρg vg ) = −∇ ⋅ (α g ρg vdr,g ) + ( mlg − mgl ) , (4)

where mlg is the mass converted from liquid to gas phase (kg); mgl is the mass converted from gas phase
to liquid (kg).

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ICAMCE-2023 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2529 (2023) 012009 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2529/1/012009

2.2. The flash transformation model

This work adopts the empirical model coupled with the single-fluid model [10] to describe the flash
process of water in a small hole and to determine mlg and SE.
Tl − Tsat
mlg = coeff α l ρl
Tsat
, (5)
where Tl is the temperature of water in the hole (K); Tsat is the saturation temperature of water at
different pressures in the hole (K); coeff is the empirical coefficient, whose value determines the amount
of evaporation in the calculation domain, and coeff is 33 in this work.
S E = mlg hfg
, (6)
where hfg is the water gasification’s latent heat (J/kg).

2.3. Grid division and boundary conditions

The geometric structure of the single-hole orifice studied in this work is shown in Fig. 2.

Figure 2. Orifice geometry

Figure 3. Simulation results for different mesh Figure 4. Mesh for the calculation domain
numbers of the orifice

This work uses the axisymmetric model for simulation and ICEM to establish a physical model of
small holes. In this work, the structured mesh is used to divide the computation domain of small holes.
The mass flow rate through the hole varies relatively little when the number of grids is above 17, 500,
as shown in Fig. 3. Hence, there are 17, 500 grids in our work, and we illustrate the equivalent meshing
of tiny holes in Fig. 4.

3. Calculation results and analysis

Liquid water is at the inlet of the pore, and the liquid level in the distribution tank is not changed. At the
total inlet pressure of 12.35 kPa, the inlet water temperature of 323.1 K, the flash pressure of 7384.4 Pa,
and the relative outlet pressure of 0 Pa, the flash phenomenon of water passing through the pore is
studied.

3
ICAMCE-2023 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2529 (2023) 012009 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2529/1/012009

Figure 5. Temperature distribution inside the Figure 6. Vapor volume fraction distribution
orifice inside the orifice

Figure 7. Variations of temperature and vapor volume fraction along the orifice axis

Figs. 5 and 7 show that the water temperature changes little after water enters the hole (about 1 K).
The water’s temperature sharply drops towards the hole’s outflow. The gas phase volume fraction rises
steadily from the pore input to the pore output, as shown in Figs. 6 and 7. From Fig. 8, the temperature
is lower near the pore wall than it is in the middle, and the gas phase volume fraction is higher.

3.1. Influence of inlet water temperature

Under the conditions of the constant flash pressure, as shown in Fig. 8, the higher the incoming water
temperature is, the more water it is vaporized, and the larger the water temperature decreases, all of
which are directly proportional to each other. The increasing trend of the gas volume fraction from the
intake to the exit at various temperatures is shown in Fig. 9. However, at the same position, as the inlet
water temperature is bigger, the gas volume percentage is bigger at the same place.

3.2. Influence of flash pressure

Fig.10 shows that at the constant inlet water temperature, the smaller the flash pressure is, the faster the
temperature drops. Fig.11 shows that the lower the flash pressure is, the larger the gas phase volume
fraction becomes.

3.3. Influence of orifice thickness

When water’s input temperature and flash pressure remained constant, as shown in Fig. 12, the thinner
the orifice is, the faster the temperature drop of water in the orifice will be. However, the influence of
the orifice thickness change on the temperature drop is not obvious, and the temperatures at the orifice
outlet are the same for different orifice thicknesses. Fig.13 shows that the gas phase volume percentage
at the orifice exit is the same no matter how thin the orifice plate is, and grows more quickly as it
becomes thinner.

4
ICAMCE-2023 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2529 (2023) 012009 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2529/1/012009

Figure 8. Orifice temperature variation at Figure 9. Vapor volume fraction varies along
various intake temperatures the orifice at various temperatures

Figure 10. Temperature variation at various Figure 11. Vapor volume fraction variation
flash pressures along the orifice’s center along the orifice at various flash pressures

Figure 12. Temperature variation in the Figure 13. Change of the volume fraction of
orifice at different orifice thicknesses the vapor phase at various orifice thicknesses

4. Conclusions
1. When water flashes in the hole, the closer the water is to the hole outlet, the lower the water
temperature is and the bigger the gas phase size distribution is, and the gas phase volume percentage at
the hole output is greater than 50%. This indicates that the orifice pressure isolator can play a good role
in pressure isolation and has a good flash gasification effect.
2. The water in the tiny hole is becoming more superheated as a result of the rising inlet water
temperature and falling flash pressure. The volume proportion of the gas phase increases with flash
intensity. Yet, it is difficult to raise the water temperature and drastically lower the flash pressure because
of the impact of the pore volume. It is advised that during design and operation, the difference in pressure
between the pore’s input and outflow is limited to 8.6 kPa at most. The thickness of the orifice plate
only affects the change rate of water temperature and phase volume fraction in the orifice.

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ICAMCE-2023 IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2529 (2023) 012009 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2529/1/012009

3. A curved surface can be set at a certain distance from the orifice outlet so that the unvaporized
water can collide with the curved surface and break into droplets, and the flash space downstream of the
orifice plate can be used to continue gasification. Further research that will be done is pertinent.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge support from Jiaxing Power Supply Company of State
Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Co., Ltd. (5211JX220003)
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