CFD Simulation and High-Speed Photography of Liquid Flow in the Outer Cavity Zone of a Rotating Packed Bed Reactor

The outer cavity zone, having numerous moving liquids, is an important mass transfer zone in a rotating packed bed (RPB) reactor. However, investigation of the liquid flow in the outer cavity zone is scarce. In this work, liquid flow in the outer cavity zone of the RPB reactor with nickel foam packing was studied by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation and then verified by high-speed photography technology. Large eddy simulation and volume of fluid model were adopted to predict the liquid flow pattern, average diameter, and velocity of liquid droplets in the outer cavity zone. A high-speed photography method, called “Sudoku”, with eight shooting windows was employed to capture the liquid flow of different zones in imaging experiments. Simulation results of liquid droplet velocity agreed well with the experimental results within a deviation of ±10%. This CFD simulation assisted with Sudoku photography was helpful to comprehensively understand the liquid flow in the outer cavity zone of the RPB reactor with nickel foam packing