I worked for Knorr-Bremse Comm. Vehicle Systems for 6 months as a simulation engineer trainee. My main task was to create finite element model of an air dryer cartridge and perform adsorption and desorption simulations in Comsol. The purpose of an air dryer cartridge is to create dry and clean air for compressors in the air braking system in trucks. The process is based on Pressure Swing Adsorption technology used to separate/adsorb gas species from a mixture of gases under high pressure level and when the process swings to low pressure to desorb the trapped material. Comsol is a finite element program which also allows for entering coupled systems of partial differential equations (PDE). I built up the simplified geometry of the investigated air dryer cartridge and used PDEs (mass balance, energy equation, molar flow) according to scientific articles in order to make adsorption and desorption simulations. Adsorption and desorption calculations were verified with measurement results.
