Friction factor determination for flow through finite wire-mesh woven-screen matrices

Experiments were carried out to determine the pressure drop throught 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 -<(epsilon)over bar>)/Re), based on the hydraulic radius of the packed bed, ranging from 5 X 10(-4) to 5 X 10(-3). The rest 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 X 10(-4) less than or equal to M(1 - <(epsilon)over bar>)/Re less than or equal to 1) and to different screen mesh sizes. The correlation has been found to work for annular and circular cross-section beds.