Hydrodynamics of a novel 3D printed structured packing-SpiroPak

Hydrodynamic performance of an ultra low-pressure drop and high surface area, 3D printed structured packing (SpiroPak) was investigated in this study. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling combined with single-phase (dry) and irrigated (multiphase) experiments were carried out to validate the CFD modelling results. Experiments were conducted to measure the dry and wet pressure drop at a range of liquid load (0-38.2 m(3)/m(2).h) and F-factor (0-1.2 Pa-0.5). Liquid distribution was measured using Wire Mesh Sensor (WMS) for SpiroPak and compared with a commercial and 3D printed replica of Mellpak 250X and Montzpak B1-500. The topology of the packing was analysed to calculate the specific surface area that could be available for mass transfer. It was found that the SpiroPak can have up to 50 similar to 200% more surface area per unit volume when compared with commercial packing. Experimental and modelling results showed that SpiroPak could reduce the dry pressure drop by approximately 50%. Parametric study found that reducing corrugation size to increase surface area and increasing the gap size to reduce the pressure drop were key design parameters of SpiroPak. Finally, scale-up and scale-out (tessellation) techniques were compared to determine the optimum element size for the application of SpiroPak on a large scale.