Mathematical modeling of hydrodynamic processes in high-porous open cell metal foams
Advancing the chemical engineering fundamentals
Transport Phenomena in Porous/Granular Media (T2-7P)
Keywords: porous media, metal foam, mathematical modeling, hydrodynamic
Support and development of up-to-date level of industrial catalytic processes requires radical solutions in the field of producing new-generation catalysts possessing unique physicochemical and mechanical properties along with high operation characteristics. As such promising modern catalysts the block catalysts based on high-porous open cell metal foams can be considered, which are prepared by the polymer matrix replication and are characterized by high permeability, reliable work in the external diffusion zone, etc. Cellular metals were developed for filtration of gases, liquids, metal melts and are virtually unknown as catalyst supports.
Structure of high-permeable high-porous foam metals represents a 3D-skeleton formed by crosspieces conjoined in the nodes in four and having in cross-section the form of a curvilinear triangle. Spatial dislocation of the nodes is not random but possesses certain regularity. Due to such organization open cell structure can be considered as a group of elementary cells in form rather close to regular dodecahedron whose vertices correspond to the nodes while the edges are formed by strips connecting the nodes. However, the angles between faces in a regular dodecahedron are such that can’t allow full volume filling with regularly aligned dodecahedra.
In terms of the work on thesis the foam metal elementary cell geometry was developed that provide the volume filling with the regular packing. Such foam cell is characterized by diameter of its generating sphere and interception degree (overlapping degree) – the distance from the center of the cell generating sphere to the plane intercepting a spherical segment referred to the cell diameter.
The overlapping degree affects the window diameter – diameter of a circle resulting from spherical surface intersection with the secant plane, as well as on the obtained foamed material porosity. To exclude overlapping of the neighbor windows, overlapping degree is limited by some minimum value.
For comparing the modeled foam structure with the real structure, the correlation of one of the model geometry parameters (overlapping degree) with the real structure parameters (porosity, specific surface) was found. Both the stationary and the turbulent (kε model) flow driven by the applied constant pressure drop was considered. Mathematical modeling of the flow was based on Navier-Stokes equations and was realized using the numerical simulation packages (ANSYS and Fluent).
See the full pdf manuscript of the abstract.
Presented Monday 17, 13:30 to 15:00, in session Transport Phenomena in Porous/Granular Media (T2-7P).
