Understanding the role of perforations on the local hydrodynamics of gas–liquid flows through structured packings

Aniket Ambekar (Corresponding author), E.A.J.F. Peters, Olaf Hinrichsen, Vivek V. Buwa, J.A.M. Kuipers

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Samenvatting

Structured packings are widely used to perform gas–liquid separation processes as they provide a large mass-transfer area and low-pressure drop. The overall performance of these packings is governed by the local liquid distribution/gas–liquid interfacial area. The local liquid distribution is substantially influenced by the arrangement and geometrical features of the structured packing. While the influence of arrangement and few geometrical features on the local liquid distribution has recently been investigated using the structure-resolved simulations, the perforations on the structured packings are usually ignored. In the present work, we have performed structure-resolved gas–liquid flow simulations, using the Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) method implemented in the open-source C++ library OpenFOAM, in a periodic domain of Mellapak.250 with and without resolving the perforations. We show that the presence of perforations results in flow separation as well as droplet formation leading to an increase in the liquid holdup, interfacial and wetted areas, irrespective of the fluid properties and wetting conditions (specified using static contact angle ‘θw’) considered in this work. We also show that at an inclination angle ‘β’ of 45° from horizontal, the location of the perforations governs the local liquid distribution and the resulting flow metrics. However, at a β of 90°, the number of perforations governs the local liquid distribution, irrespective of their location. Further, we also show that the predictions of structure-resolved VOF simulations, with perforations resolved, are in a relatively better agreement with the correlations in the literature at small values of ‘θw’) in terms of liquid holdup and interfacial area.
Originele taal-2Engels
Artikelnummer150084
Aantal pagina's16
TijdschriftChemical Engineering Journal
Volume486
DOI's
StatusGepubliceerd - 15 apr. 2024

Financiering

The authors acknowledge the funding received from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 899987. The authors are thankful to SURF and IITD for computational and software resources, respectively.

FinanciersFinanciernummer
European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme
H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions899987

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