Comparison of radiant intensity in aqueous media using experimental and numerical simulation techniques.

Background: Measurement of light intensity reaching a point of interest in complex systems is a challenge faced by academia and industry. This study analyzes an optical ray tracing method to predict the radiant intensity reaching a point of interest in a germicidal system. Methods: Implementation was performed by analyzing how the method compares with the discrete ordinate method, radiometry, and actinometry. This study further quantified the effect of the photoreactor quartz tube on the measured intensity for multiple wavelengths. Results: Light intensity losses were estimated to be 10 ± 0.5% for the FX-1 265 source. In contrast, the simulation in a water medium showed an increase of up to 64% in the light intensity delivered to the central part of the tube owing to internal reflections and scattering. Model predictions from ray tracing were successfully compared with the discrete ordinate method (DOM) and experimental data (within ± 6%), ensuring the accurate design of complex systems for water disinfection. Conclusions: The data from simulations address the challenges faced in complex radiation modeling and demonstrate that the method can be utilized as a useful tool for optimization and prediction.

The following study explores a new way to measure the strength of light in complex systems, particularly in water treatment type setups. We used a method called optical ray tracing to predict how much light reaches a specific point in the system and have compared it with other techniques like radiometry and discrete ordinate method to make sure it is valid and accurate. An interesting finding was that the type of tube material, in this case, a quartz tube, affects the intensity of the light. For a specific light source with 265 nm light emitting diodes, we estimate a 10% reduction in light intensity due to the quartz tube (transporter of water through the system) in air. But when the simulation was done in a water medium, we found a 64% increase in light intensity in the center of the tube because of how light bounces around and scatters in water. The optical ray tracing method's predictions closely matched other techniques (within about 6% of error), making it a useful tool for designing systems for water disinfection. The study also builds a complex system and predicts the amount of light reaching certain points of interest. This research helps tackle challenges in modeling complex radiation systems and offers insights into how to optimize and predict the behavior of light in such systems.

Evaluation of the uniformity of UVA LED illumination on flat surfaces: Discrete ordinate method, single axis, and surface scanning radiometry.

Uniform illumination from UVA LED lamps is a crucial design characteristic for a range of industries including photocatalytic applications. In this work, radiometry and the discrete ordinate method (DOM) are used to determine the ideal target surface size and working distance from a UVA LED lamp for highly uniform illumination. Horizontal incident radiation and full surface incident radiation measurements were conducted using a scanning radiometry technique. It is shown that horizontal incident and full surface incident radiation measurements show good agreement for uniformity measurements over a range of working distances, with maximum uniformity (2.6% and 3.6% standard deviation respectively) over the measured range found at 15 mm working distance. DOM simulation results showed good agreement with radiometry for power and incident radiation measurements, whilst indicating a maximum uniformity at 20 mm working distance. These results demonstrate that DOM simulations can be used as a fast, low cost, and reliable indication of surface uniformity, peak surface irradiance, and power measurements in the design of UV lamps for industrial and academic applications.

Modeling of H2 Permeation through Electroless Pore-Plated Composite Pd Membranes Using Computational Fluid Dynamics.

This work focused on the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling of H2/N2 separation in a membrane permeator module containing a supported dense Pd-based membrane that was prepared using electroless pore-plating (ELP-PP). An easy-to-implement model was developed based on a source-sink pair formulation of the species transport and continuity equations. The model also included the Darcy-Forcheimer formulation for modeling the porous stainless steel (PSS) membrane support and Sieverts' law for computing the H2 permeation flow through the dense palladium film. Two different reactor configurations were studied, which involved varying the hydrogen flow permeation direction (in-out or out-in). A wide range of experimental data was simulated by considering the impact of the operating conditions on the H2 separation, such as the feed pressure and the H2 concentration in the inlet stream. Simulations of the membrane permeator device showed an excellent agreement between the predicted and experimental data (measured as permeate and retentate flows and H2 separation). Molar fraction profiles inside the permeator device for both configurations showed that concentration polarization near the membrane surface was not a limit for the hydrogen permeation but could be useful information for membrane reactor design, as it showed the optimal length of the reactor.

Optimization and parallelization of the discrete ordinate method for radiation transport simulation in OpenFOAM: Hierarchical combination of shared and distributed memory approaches.

This paper describes the reduction in memory and computational time for the simulation of complex radiation transport problems with the discrete ordinate method (DOM) model in the open-source computational fluid dynamics platform OpenFOAM. Finite volume models require storage of vector variables in each spatial cell; DOM introduces two additional discretizations, in direction and wavelength, making memory a limiting factor. Using specific classes for radiation sources data, changing the store of fluxes and other minor changes allowed a reduction of 75% in memory requirements. Besides, a hierarchical parallelization was developed, where each node of the standard parallelization uses several computing threads, allowing higher speed and scalability of the problem. This architecture, combined with optimization of some parts of the code, allowed a global speedup of x15. This relevant reduction in time and memory of radiation transport opens a new horizon of applications previously unaffordable.