Study on the effects of baffle geometries in baffle-filled membrane tubes using computational fluid dynamics

摘要

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were carried out for fluid flow in baffle-filled membrane tubes to investigate the effects of baffle geometries on the wall shear stress and pressure drop along the channel. The commercial CFD package FLUENT, which employs the finite-volume method, was used for numerical computation. The simulation result shows that the presence of baffles in the channel generates high wall shear stress on the membrane surfaces,which benefits to improve the filtration fluxes. Simultaneously, the cost for using baffles is also high, since the pressure drop along the membrane module is significantly increased. It also indicates that the wall shear stress increases with the increase of baffle diameter and with the decrease of baffle spacing. Meanwhile, the pressure drop along the membrane tube decreases with the reduction of baffle diameter and with the increase of baffle spacing.