CFD study on particle-to-fluid heat transfer in fixed bed reactors: Convective heat transfer at low and high pressure

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has proven to be a reliable tool for fixed bed reactor design, through the resolution of 3D transport equations for mass, momentum and energy balances. Solution of these equations allow to obtain velocity and temperature profiles within the reactor. The numerical r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chemical engineering science 2006-07, Vol.61 (13), p.4341-4353
Main Authors: Guardo, A., Coussirat, M., Recasens, F., Larrayoz, M.A., Escaler, X.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Chemical engineering
Computational fluid dynamics
Exact sciences and technology
Fluid mechanics
Heat and mass transfer. Packings, plates
Heat transfer
Hydrodynamics
Packed bed
Reactors
Supercritical fluids
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Summary:Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has proven to be a reliable tool for fixed bed reactor design, through the resolution of 3D transport equations for mass, momentum and energy balances. Solution of these equations allow to obtain velocity and temperature profiles within the reactor. The numerical results obtained allow estimating useful parameters applicable to equipment design. Particle-to-fluid heat transfer coefficient is of primal importance when analyzing the performance of a fixed bed reactor. To gain insight in this subject, numerical results using a modified commercial CFD solver are presented and particle-to-fluid heat transfer in fixed beds is analyzed. Two different configurations are studied: forced convection at low pressure (with air as circulating fluid) and mixed (i.e., free + forced ) convection at high pressure (with supercritical CO 2 as circulating fluid). In order to impose supercritical fluid properties to the model, modifications into the CFD code were introduced by means of user defined functions (UDF) and user defined equations (UDE). The obtained numerical data is compared to previously published data and a novel CFD-based correlation (for free, forced and mixed convection at high pressure) is presented.
ISSN:0009-2509
1873-4405
DOI:10.1016/j.ces.2006.02.011