Hydrodynamic performance of an ultra low-pressure drop and high surface area, 3D printed structured packing (SpiroPak) was investigated in this study. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling combined with single-phase (dry) and irrigated (multiphase) experiments were carried out to validate the CFD modelling results. Experiments were conducted to measure the dry and wet pressure drop at a range of liquid load (0–38.2 m³/m²∙h) and F-factor (0–1.2 Pa^0.5). Liquid distribution was measured using Wire Mesh Sensor (WMS) for SpiroPak and compared with a commercial and 3D printed replica of Mellpak 250X and Montzpak B1–500. The topology of the packing was analysed to calculate the specific surface area that could be available for mass transfer. It was found that the SpiroPak can have up to 50~200% more surface area per unit volume when compared with commercial packing. Experimental and modelling results showed that SpiroPak could reduce the dry pressure drop by approximately 50%. Parametric study found that reducing corrugation size to increase surface area and increasing the gap size to reduce the pressure drop were key design parameters of SpiroPak. Finally, scale-up and scale-out (tessellation) techniques were compared to determine the optimum element size for the application of SpiroPak on a large scale.

本研究研究了超低压降和高表面积 3D 打印规整填料 (SpiroPak) 的流体动力学性能。计算流体动力学 (CFD) 建模结合单相（干）和灌溉（多相）实验进行，以验证 CFD 建模结果。进行了实验以测量在一定范围的液体负载 (0–38.2 m ³ /m ² ∙h) 和 F 因子 (0–1.2 Pa ^0.5）。使用用于 SpiroPak 的丝网传感器 (WMS) 测量液体分布，并与 Mellpak 250X 和 Montzpak B1-500 的商业和 3D 打印复制品进行比较。分析填料的拓扑结构以计算可用于传质的比表面积。结果表明，与商业包装相比，SpiroPak 每单位体积的表面积最多可增加 50% 到 200%。实验和建模结果表明，SpiroPak 可以将干压降降低约 50%。参数研究发现，减小波纹尺寸以增加表面积和增加间隙尺寸以减少压降是 SpiroPak 的关键设计参数。最后，