MFIX Code: General Description

MFIX (Multiphase Flow with Interphase eXchanges) is a general-purpose computer code developed at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) for describing the hydrodynamics, heat transfer and chemical reactions in fluid-solids systems. It has been used for describing bubbling and circulating fluidized beds and spouted beds. MFIX calculations give transient data on the three-dimensional distribution of pressure, velocity, temperature, and species mass fractions. MFIX code is based on a generally accepted set of multiphase flow equations. The code is used as a "test-stand" for testing and developing multiphase flow constitutive equations.

MFIX Features:

• Mass, momentum, energy and species balance equations for gas and multiple solids phases
• Granular stress equations based on kinetic theory and frictional flow theory
• Three-dimensional Cartesian or cylindrical coordinate systems with nonuniform mesh size
• Impermeable and semi-permeable internal surfaces
• Set up the simulation with an input data file
• Define chemical reactions and kinetics with the input data file or with a user-defined subroutine
• Error checking of user input
• Multiple, single-precision, binary, direct-access output files that reduces disk space and increases data retrieval speed
• Post-processing codes for the animation and retrieval of output data
• Fortran 90 code base with allocatable arrays
• Generate serial, shared-memory parallel (SMP) or distributed-memory parallel (DMP) executables from the same code base