Regular Article

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach for the modeling of flux in a polymeric membrane using finite volume method

School of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan

^* e-mail: ahsan@scme.nust.edu.pk

Received: 2 June 2015
Accepted: 10 February 2017

Abstract

The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling in this study observes steady-state mass transfer in a polymeric membrane. The efficiency, robustness, and reliability of recent numerical methods for finding solutions to flow problems have given rise to the implementation of CFD as a broadly used analysis method for engineering problems like membrane separation system. This study is novel due to the implementation of user-defined scalar diffusion equation by using user-defined functions in finite volume method (FVM). During the implementation of governing equation and boundary conditions important details of the FVM are discussed in detail. In this research, the flux profile is reported calculated from the pressure gradient for a steady-state problem.