Efficient direct numerical simulation of gas absorption in falling films using a combined high-throughput/high-performance approach

Abstract

Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of liquid–gas mass transfer processes in falling film can model the transfer effect enhancement accurately, but requires huge computational effort. To improve the computational efficiency, we propose a hybrid parallel strategy combining high-throughput computing on the top level and high-performance unit simulations with different interface capture strategies on the bottom level. We investigate the CO2 absorption in methanol with different concentrations of Al2O3 nanoparticles using the proposed computation strategy to demonstrate its performance and assess the intensification mass transfer effect. Moreover, the Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) is utilized in the case of oxygen absorption in water film to compare local gas concentration profiles obtained by the proposed approach, those obtained by the reduced modeling approach and the experimental data generated by a planar laser induced luminescence method under similar conditions. The results show that DNS model matches better the experimental data with high computational accuracy and efficiency.