Systematic design of structured packings based on shape optimization

Distillation is not only a widely-used but also an energy-intensive separation process, in which internals such as structured packings play an important role. Increasing mass transfer efficiency by designing improved structured packings in order to provide a large interfacial area while enabling low pressure drop is one promising approach to quickly reduce the energy requirements of vacuum distillation where low pressure drop is important for separation efficiency and thermal stability of the processed media. The current work presents an innovative method to optimize structured packings by means of constrained shape optimization on the basis of computational fluid dynamics simulations to minimize the pressure drop while maintaining a constant specific surface area. To solve the fluid dynamic optimization problem, a gradient-based local optimization algorithm in a continuous adjoint formulation is utilized. The shape optimization is applied for a commonly used Rombobak packing, and tested as a refinement method for an initial structure derived by topology optimization. The results demonstrate a successful reduction of the pressure drop in both cases, which can be attributed to several factors, including the refinement of the edges and the mending of the dead zones.

Subjects

structured packings

CFD simulation

optimization-based design

DDC Class

660: Chemistry; Chemical Engineering

530: Physics

620: Engineering

Lizenz

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Publication version

publishedVersion

Name

LAPSE-2025.0325-1v1.pdf

Type

Main Article

Size

1.58 MB

Format

Adobe PDF

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Systematic design of structured packings based on shape optimization