Numerical and physical comparisons of two models of a gas centrifuge

We compare two models used to compute the internal hydrodynamics of a gas centrifuge. The scoop action is taken into account through boundary conditions on the flow entering the bowl of the centrifuge in the first model, and through sinks and drag forces in the chambers of the centrifuge in the second. The numerical approximations of the models are based on a finite volume scheme on staggered rectangular grids and on a fixed-point iterative method. Convergence of the approximations is studied numerically on a family of refined grids and comparisons of the two models are discussed for the Iguacu centrifuge. It appears that linear computations on rough grids are sufficient in the first model to correctly predict the separative power of the centrifuge, while other parameters like the return flow or the drag forces require finer meshes and non-linear computations in the second model. (author)