Pulsating Flow Effects on Hydrodynamics in a Desalination Membrane Filled with Spacers

Abstract

A previously developed and validated two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model to study the hydrodynamics in a desalination membrane filled with spacers in zigzag arrangements has been further developed to include the effects of a pulsating flow with the profile of a heartbeat. Numerical solutions were obtained with Fluent for pulsating laminar flows in channels filled with four different spacers and four lengths of cells. Hydrodynamics was investigated for unsteady state, using a characteristic function of a heartbeat, in order to study the influence of temporal variation in the hydrodynamic behavior. The results show the velocities distribution, streamlines, pressure drop and the wall shear stress on the impermeable wall of the membrane, for Reynolds numbers up to 100. The reduction in the distance between the filaments of the spacers, leads to the appearance of more active recirculation zones that can promote mass transfer and decreasing concentrations layers. On the other hand, this reduction increases the pressure drop and consequently the energy expended in the process. Further, the characteristic function of heartbeat demonstrates promising results, with regard to the energy consumption in the process and optimization of the recirculation zones.