How to Set Up Physics & Tune Parameters to Reproduce Gas-Liquid Two-Phase Flow with Chemical Reaction in Porous Media

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Hello everyone,

I’m a graduate student majoring in Process Equipment and Control Engineering, focusing on trickle bed reactor simulations. I’m currently trying to reproduce a published study on gas-liquid two-phase co-current flow through catalyst-packed porous media, coupled with heterogeneous chemical reactions and heat/mass transfer. I’ve run into bottlenecks on the correct physics coupling logic and parameter tuning methods, so I’d really appreciate your guidance.

My Target Scenario

Gas and liquid phases flow through a catalyst bed, and heterogeneous reactions occur on the catalyst surface, with reaction heat coupled to the temperature field.

Model Selection

AI suggested using the Mixture model + user-defined volume force equations to couple reactions, but I'm not sure if this combination is suitable for the trickle flow regime (gas-liquid stratified flow in fixed beds). Is there any more recommended physics combination for this specific scenario?

Core Divergence Error (Basic Issues Already Excluded)

When running pure flow simulation (no reactions enabled) with the Mixture model, it converges perfectly with slip velocity disabled (homogeneous mode); However, as soon as I enable Slip Velocity (Schiller-Naumann model), the simulation diverges immediately after 3-5 iterations, with residuals spiking directly (no gradual oscillation process); I have already tried: lowering all under-relaxation factors, refining the porous media mesh (mesh quality ≥ 0.8), step-by-step flow field initialization, and double-checking all boundary conditions, but none of these worked.

My Requests

Has anyone encountered this Mixture + slip velocity divergence issue specifically in porous media zones? How to debug the root cause and fix this problem?

Are there any COMSOL reference cases, setup tutorials, or published paper appendices for gas-liquid two-phase flow + porous media + chemical reaction simulations, especially for trickle bed reactors? Paid resources are also acceptable. Any advice or resource sharing would be greatly appreciated! I will share the full setup workflow and troubleshooting guide once I resolve this issue.

Thank you in advance!


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