Fluid flow and heat transfer across an elliptical hollow fiber membrane tube bank with randomly distributed features

Abstract

An elliptical hollow fiber membrane tube bank (EHFMTB) has better performances while being employed for air humidification. The EHFMTB is populated in a plastic shell to form a shell-and-tube heat exchanger like membrane contactor. The tube bank is always randomly populated in practical applications because of convenience and randomness in the manufacturing process. The fluid flow and heat transfer across a randomly distributed elliptical hollow fiber membrane tube bank (REHFMTB) are investigated. To disclose the influences of the fiber arrangements on the performances, three unit cells containing 20 fibers with different randomly distributions are selected as the calculating domains. A renormalization group k–ε (RNG KE) turbulence model with enhanced wall treatment is used for solving the equations governing the momentum and heat transports. The friction factor and Nusselt number across the REHFMTB under various fiber distributions, Reynolds numbers (Re), packing fractions (φ) and elliptical semiaxis ratios (b/a) are numerically obtained and experimentally validated. It is found that the comprehensive heat transfer performance is deteriorated for the fluid flow across the REHFMTB.