GeoDict User Meeting 2023 & Workshops / Online (Jan 30 - Feb 3, 2023)

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Abstract

The separation of two phases such as water or oil from air is highly energy consuming and, therefore, expensive. Improvements on coalescer filter media through the trial-and-error optimization of pressure drop at constant or increased filtration efficiency may lead to significant lower operational costs, but are time and cost intensive.

The image shows a filter medium with loaded droplets on the fiber surface. The geometry has been used to verify the pressure drop increase with time against the Volume-Of-Fluid method.
Fig. 1 The image shows a filter medium with loaded droplets on the fiber surface. The geometry has been used to verify the pressure drop increase with time against the Volume-Of-Fluid method.

As an alternative, the GeoDict software offers a digital solution to avoid extensive and time consuming testing phases. In the GeoDict 2023 release, the software includes the novel feature of coalescence to digitally design, optimize and test the performance of coalescer filter media before manufacturing. The approach to simulate coalescence has been developed in the framework of the publicly founded project BiGoFil and is based on the proven solid particle filtration features in GeoDict. The novel feature uses distance mapping functions and contact angles to efficiently calculate droplet movement and droplet shape within the filter media. In a first step, particles which are filtered are fluidized and depending on the contact angle with the fiber surface are spherical shaped in case of high contact angle and nearly flat when lower contact angles are used. In the next step, droplets may move along the fiber by connecting with other droplets. In this case, new centers for the developing droplet are calculated based on distance mapping operations. The results are calculated quickly, as GeoDict does not use classical two-phase or surface optimizations methods.

A first verification of results comparing the droplet shape on a single fiber, as well as on a set of fibers, on single fiber and fibrous structures with GeoDict shows good agreement with existing Volume-Of-Fluid methods such as StarCCM+. Also good agreement is found for the pressure drop evolution with increasing droplet loading when compared with StarCCM+, in a collaboration with the University of Applied Sciences Heilbronn. In the future, the drainage and re-entrainment of droplets will be added and validated against experimental measurements.