Numerical studies of dynamic behavior of liquid film on single-layer wire mesh with different wettabilities

Abstract

Droplet impacting on the stainless steel wire mesh is very common in chemical devices, like a rotating packed bed. Surface wettability of wire mesh significantly affects the liquid flow pattern and liquid dispersion performance. However, the effect of surface wettability on the impaction phenomena at microscale such as liquid film is still unknown. In this work, the dynamic behavior of liquid film on the surface of wire mesh was analyzed by computational fluid dynamics simulation. The dynamic behavior of liquid film on the surface of wire mesh can be divided into the following three steps: (1) spreading step; (2) shrinkage process; (3) stabilizing or disappearing step. Effects of surface wettability, as well as operating conditions, on wetting area and liquid film thickness were studied. Compared to the hydrophilic wire mesh, the final wetting area of hydrophobic wire mesh is zero in most cases. The average liquid film thickness on the surface of hydrophilic wire mesh is 30.02–77.29 μm, and that of hydrophobic wire mesh is 41.76–237.37 μm. This work provided a basic understanding of liquid film flow at microscale on the surface with various surface wettabilities, which can be guiding the packing optimization and design.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

stainless steel wire mesh / computational fluid dynamics / surface wettability / liquid film / impacting

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