A porous media CFD model for the simulation of hemodialysis in hollow fiber membrane modules

A computational model was developed to predict the performance of hollow fiber membrane hemodialyzers. Blood and dialysate were modelled as fluids flowing through two interpenetrating porous media. Concerning hydrodynamics, experimental Darcy permeabilities measured for commercial hemodialyzers were used for both compartments. Concerning mass transfer, both diffusion and ultrafiltration were simulated. On the blood side theoretical Sherwood numbers for parallel flow in pipes were adopted. On the dialysate side Sherwood numbers were derived from CFD predictions for regular hexagonal fiber bundles. Solute concentrations on the two sides were alternatively computed in an iterative way and were…