Investigation of flow and pressure drop through porous metallic screens with different weave densities

Metallic screens have been frequently used for cryogenic propellant management system under microgravity conditions due to the superior properties to separate the liquid and vapor phases. The flow through screens (FTS) characteristics as the main factor to determine the separation performance is greatly influenced by the pore structure of metallic screens. However, the actual flow behavior through the pore structure cannot be readily observed by the experiments and macroscopic simulation. Therefore, in the present study, three-dimensional pore-scale models are established to investigate flow behavior through the pore structure, and meanwhile the FTS characteristics for four of types Dutch Twill Weave (DTW) screens with different weave densities are pre-sented. The influence of cryogenic temperature on the volume porosity and specific surface area of the metallic screens with different weave densities are firstly examined based on periodic structure unit for accurate esti-mation in the following study. Based on the pore-scale model, numerical simulations of laminar flow through screens for various liquid are carried out, and the accuracy of the model is verified by comparing to the experimental results. The simulation results show that the cross-sectional hydraulic diameter of the screen in the thickness direction imposes a significant effect on local FTS pressure drop. Moreover, the dimensionless corre-lations of the FTS pressure drop for the DTW screens are obtained based on the simulation results. Furthermore, the permeability and Forchheimer coefficient of the screen are acquired on the basis of the Darcy-Forchheimer law for facilitating the design of Liquid Acquisition Device (LAD).