Experiments and simulation of liquid drainage in oscillating packed beds under roll and heave motions

Abstract

Abstract Replication in the laboratory of offshore sea/swell movements is an essential component in the study and design of unit operations commissioned for seagoing vessels. Whether these perturbations affect the internal fluid flow structure inside reactors on‐board ships is yet to be investigated. This study focuses on understanding the phenomenon of liquid drainage of a porous medium submitted to hexapod‐controlled column oscillations. Liquid saturation transients, drainage rate, and drainage velocity were monitored using wire‐mesh sensors in porous media, under forced tilting (roll) and non‐tilting (heave) oscillations. A 3D/transient Eulerian two‐fluid model was also solved in the robot moving reference frame to reproduce the accelerated liquid drainage measured in oscillating columns. Such acceleration was highlighted by unveiling the relationship between the roll amplitude, the wall‐region greater permeability, and the uneven crosswise liquid distribution. Finally, the moving‐frame fictitious acceleration forces stemming from column oscillations were found to be negligibly small compared with the gravity both under heave and roll excitations.