Hydrodynamics of novel structured packings: An experimental and multi-scale CFD study

• New structured packings with wave geometry structures were proposed.
• A multi-scale CFD model was established to predict the hydrodynamic performance.
• The agreement between experimental data and CFD simulations was confirmed.

Three types of structured packings with wave-like corrugated sheets were investigated, aiming to improve the hydrodynamics of structured packings. The experimental results showed that the new proposed structured packings have a significant advantage in pressure drop and capacity over traditional Mellapak 125X. A modified multi-scale CFD (computational fluid dynamic) model was applied to characterize the hydrodynamic performance of the novel packings. At the micro-scale (corrugation scale), a 2D VOF (volume of fluid) model was used to trace the gas–liquid interface and to calculate the liquid film thickness for two-phase flow; then, a 3D VOF model was used to calculate the effective wetting area at the meso-scale (packing element scale). Finally, a 3D porous media model was proposed to calculate the dry and wet pressure drops at the macro-scale (column scale). The average relative deviations between the experimental data and the calculated results for dry and wet pressure drops were 7.26% and 8.24%, respectively, confirming validity of the CFD simulations. The proposed modified multi-scale CFD model can be used effectively to design and optimize complex structured packings.