Packed Bed CFD Simulation by ANSYS Fluent, Training

Description

Packed Bed Project Description

In this project, which has been done by the CFD simulation method with the help of Ansys Fluent software, the gas flow passing through the packed bed is simulated. The gas used is argon monoatomic gas, which enters at a speed of 4 m/s and for the outlet is defined zero Pascal gauge pressure. The packed bed area is a porous medium with an inertial resistance of 45 (1 / m) and viscous resistance of 3e9 (1 /m^2).

Geometry & Mesh

The three-dimensional geometry of this project has been produced with SpaceClaim software.

The length of the commutating domain is 80 mm, the width is 97 mm, and its height is 388 mm. meshing of this project has been done with Ansys Meshing software, and the type of elements is unstructured. Also, the total number of elements is 501444.

 

CFD Simulation

1. the pressure-based solver method has been selected.
2. The simulation is steady.
3. The gravity effect is ignored.

 

The following tables represent a summary of the defining steps of the problem in this project and its solution:

 

	Models
Viscous model		k-epsilon
	Model	standard
	Cell zone conditions
Packed bed	Porous zone	on
	Inertial resistance	45 (1/m)
	Viscous  resistance	3e9 (1/m)
	Laminar zone	on
	Boundary conditions
Inlet		velocity inlet
	Velocity magnitude	4m/s
Outlet		Pressure outlet
	Gauge pressure	0 pa
Walls		Stationary wall
	Solution Methods
Pressure-velocity coupling		Coupled
Spatial discretization	Pressure	Second-order
	Momentum	second-order upwind
	Turbulent kinetic energy	first-order upwind
	Turbulent dissipation rate	first-order upwind
	Initialization
Initialization method		Hybrid

Packed Bed Results

At the end of the simulation, we can see that a high-pressure drop has occurred in the porous area. The amount of pressure drop is directly related to the magnitude of the defined viscous and inertial resistances. To overcome this high-pressure drop, we must provide the pressure required to cross this barrier in the path before the gas enters the packed bed area using a pressure-boosting element such as a compressor.