A systematic procedure for the virtual reconstruction of open-cell foams

被引:51
作者
Bracconi, Mauro [1 ]
Ambrosetti, Matteo [1 ]
Maestri, Matteo [1 ]
Groppi, Gianpiero [1 ]
Tronconi, Enrico [1 ]
机构
[1] Politecn Milan, Dipartimento Energia, Lab Catalysis & Catalyt Proc, Via La Masa 34, I-20156 Milan, Italy
基金
欧洲研究理事会;
关键词
Open-cell foams; Virtual reconstruction; CFD; Voronoi tessellation; Pressure drop; PRESSURE-DROP MEASUREMENTS; HEAT-TRANSFER PROPERTIES; FIXED-BED REACTORS; NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS; MACROSCOPIC TURBULENCE; THERMAL-CONDUCTIVITY; VORONOI TESSELLATION; SELECTIVE OXIDATION; CERAMIC SPONGES; SURFACE-AREA;
D O I
10.1016/j.cej.2017.01.069
中图分类号
X [环境科学、安全科学];
学科分类号
08 ; 0830 ;
摘要
Open-cell foams are considered a potential candidate as an innovative catalyst support in many processes of the chemical industry. In this respect, a deeper understanding of the transport phenomena in such structures can promote their extensive application. In this contribution, we propose a general procedure to recover a representative open-cell structure starting from some easily obtained information. In particular, we adopt a realistic description of the foam geometry by considering clusters of solid material at nodes and different strut-cross sectional shapes depending on the void fraction. The methodology avoids time-consuming and expensive measuring techniques, such as micro-computed tomography (mu CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) could be a powerful instrument to enable accurate analyses of the complex flow field and of the gas-to-solid heat and mass transport. The reconstructed geometry can be easily exploited to generate a suitable computational domain allowing for the detailed investigation of the transport properties on a realistic foam structure by means of CFD simu-lations. Moreover, the proposed methodology easily allows for parametric sensitivity analysis of the foam performances, thus being an instrument for the advanced design of these structures. The geomet-rical properties of the reconstructed foams are in good agreement with experimental measurements. The flow field established in complex tridimensional geometries reproduces the real foam behavior as proved by the comparison between numerical simulations and experiments. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
引用
收藏
页码:608 / 620
页数:13
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