CFD Simulation and Performance Comparison of Two Distillation Tank Designs with Different Heat Source Geometries

This paper presents a numerical simulation using ANSYS Fluent to investigate the performance of two water desalination systems under identical conditions. Realistic environmental conditions such as ambient pressure, temperature, fluid inlet velocity, and temperature of the fluid entering the tank and the heat source (both being water) were considered. Both models were tested under the same conditions: a pressure of 1 atm, an ambient temperature of 27°C, an inlet fluid velocity in the tank of 0.08 m/s, an inlet fluid temperature to the tank of 27°C, an inlet fluid velocity to the heat source of 0.01 m/s, and an inlet fluid temperature to the heat source of 67°C. The tank and heat source were made of aluminum and copper, respectively. The obtained results showed significant differences and will be discussed in detail in the following sections.