Research of the thermal convection influence on the process of water-in-oil emulsion stratification

The results of numerical modeling of the effect of temperature on the dynamics of the water droplets’ sedimentation in a water-in-oil emulsion in the field of gravitational forces are presented in the article. The mathematical model is based on the system of equations of thermal convection in the Boussinesq approximation with the addition of the diffusion equation. The simulation was carried out in the open software platform OpenFOAM by the control volume method. Numerical calculations take into account the thermal convection of the emulsion system. It is shown that the convective flows arising in the liquid affect the process of stratification of the water-in-oil emulsion. To estimate the simulation results dimensionless parameters of Rayleigh and Archimedes were introduced.