Eulerian-Eulerian modelling and computational fluid dynamics simulation of wire mesh demisters in MSF plants

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to focus on simulation of wire mesh demisters in multistage flash desalination (MSF) plants. The simulation is made by the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software.

Design/methodology/approach

A steady state and two-dimensional (2D) model was developed to simulate the demister. The model employs an Eulerian-Eulerian approach to simulate the flow of water vapor and brine droplets in the demister. The computational domain included three zones, which are the vapor space above and below the demister and the demister. The demister zone was modeled as a tube bank arrange or as a porous media.

Findings

Sensitivity analysis of the model showed the main parameters that affect demister performance are the vapor velocity and the demister permeability. On the other hand, the analysis showed that the vapor temperature has no effect on the pressure drop across the demister.

Research limitations/implications

The developed model was validated against previous literature data as well as real plant data. The analysis shows good agreement between model prediction and data.

Originality/value

This work is the first in the literature to simulate the MSF demister using CFD modeling. This work is part of a group effort to develop a comprehensive CFD simulation for the entire flashing stage of the MSF process, which would provide an extremely efficient and inexpensive design and simulation tool to the desalination community.

Citation

Al-Fulaij, H., Cipollina, A., Micale, G., Ettouney, H. and Bogle, D. (2014), "Eulerian-Eulerian modelling and computational fluid dynamics simulation of wire mesh demisters in MSF plants", Engineering Computations, Vol. 31 No. 7, pp. 1242-1260. https://doi.org/10.1108/EC-03-2012-0063