CFD analysis of liquid stream going through the wire-screen mesh

Abstract

Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 1-4 July, 2007.Wire-screen mesh is normally used for the removal of particles from a liquid stream. Here we consider a system where fluid passes wire-screen mesh perpendicularly. The configurations of wire-screen mesh such as diameter and shape factor of wire affect the stream of fluid going through the screen. In this study, we performed a theoretical approach to the relation between wire mesh and fluid stream with computational fluid dynamics (CFD). FLUENT is used for the simulation. Head loss can be estimated by Rose equation when the stream passes through the wire-mesh (Rose 1945). The drag coefficient (CD) varies with the stream types. The other parameters depend on a specific mesh, velocity and pressure. In the experiment we used a screen of 50 mesh-size and water as a fluid. The pressure drop during water flow was determined. The average and maximum velocities of water were calculated. On the basis of these values, we derived a proportional factor between the velocity of fluid and head loss that can estimate CD.