A Unified Approach for the Prediction of Dry Pressure Drop in Knitted Wire Mesh Demisters

The removal of unwanted droplets in thermal separation units is often accomplished using knitted wire meshes. Alongside separation efficiency, the pressure drop plays a crucial role for the design of these demisters. Wire meshes have been subject to limited investigations, and correlations for predicting the pressure drop, both with loading or without loading (referred to as dry pressure drop), have not yet been validated. To address this gap, this study conducted experimental analyses of porosity and dry pressure drop over a wide range of wire mesh parameters and intake gas velocities. Additonally, in combination with literature data, an empirical correlation was devloped. This correlation enables the prediction of all available pressure drop data with a mean deviation of ±20 %.