Friction Factor Determination for Flow Through Finite Wire-Mesh Woven-Screen Matrices

Abstract

Experiments were carried out to determine the pressure drop through an annular conduit filled with a plain square wire-mesh woven-screen matrix. The tests involved turbulent fully developed flow of air at steady-state conditions, with the modified Reynolds number (M(1−ε)/Re), based on the hydraulic radius of the packed bed, ranging from 5 × 10−4 to 5 × 10−3. The test section was built according to the geometry of a Stirling engine, simulating an annular regenerator with a radius ratio of 1.369 and a screen of mesh size 10. A corrected Ergun equation was used to correlate the experimental data, considering the wall effects. Comparisons with results obtained by other authors extended the validation of the correlation obtained to a wider range of modified Reynolds numbers (1 × 10−4 ≤ M(1 − ε)/Re ≤ 1) and to different screen mesh sizes. The correlation has been found to work for annular and circular cross-section beds.