Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation of Multiphase Flow in Structured Packings

A volume of fluid multiphase flowmodel was used to investigate the effective area and the created liquid film in the structured packings. The computational results revealed that the gas and liquid flow rates play significant roles in the effective interfacial area of the packing. In particular, the effective area increases as the flow rates of both phases increase. Numerical results were compared with the Brunazzi and SRPmodels, and a good agreement between themwas found. Attentionwas given to the process of liquid film formation in both two-dimensional 2D and three-dimensional 3D models. The current study revealed that computational fluid dynamics CFD can be used as an effective tool to provide information on the details of gas and liquid flows in complex packing geometries.