Packed columns are considered useful to a great extent in the distillation of
natural gas, and liquid volume fraction is a critical parameter for their design. This
study aimed to develop a geometrical model of a packed column with one cone spray to
simulate the injection. Here, the commercial software FLUENT 6.3 was employed.
CFD simulations using the mixture model coupled with several turbulence models were
used to analyze the porosity effect on the fluid profiles. The results show that the
decrease of the packed porosity resulted in a greater dispersion of the liquid, indicating
the anisotropic behavior in the bed. Furthermore, the effect of different turbulence
models was analyzed in order to study the atomizing of the liquid phase accurately. The
numerical results were obtained to provide further insight into the mechanism of the
distillation with volatile components.
Keywords: CFD, Distillation, ICEM, Liquid Volume Fraction, Mixture Model, Packed Bed, Porosity, Spherical Particles, Spray, Turbulence.
