A flow alignment-informed method for compartmental modelling

Complex multiphase reacting flows are pervasive in chemical engineering applications such as wastewater treatment and pharmaceutical production. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and multiphysics (CMP) simulations of such systems are challenging and frequently impractical, in part due to the large difference between the hydrodynamic timescale and reaction timescale. Compartmental modelling methods are approaches to model order reduction which have the potential to significantly reduce the computational complexity compared to CFD/CMP simulations. In this work, a flow alignment-based compartmental modelling method is proposed which leverages higher-dimensional compartment models to capture spatial variations within each compartment. The proposed method is compared to existing compartmental modelling methods using a reference two-dimensional flow geometry. The method was found to better approximate full CFD simulation compared to previous compartmental modelling methods while enabling a reduction of computational complexity on the order of 103 compared to CFD simulation.