Packed Bed CFD Simulation with Catalyst Particles, ANSYS Fluent

Description

Description

This project simulates a packed bed with Catalyst Particles using ANSYS Fluent software in which the particles are modeled as heat source. A packed bed reactor typically consists of a cylindrical vessel filled with catalyst particles that are often spherical in shape. The size of these spheres can vary depending on the specific application. The geometry of the model is designed in Design modeler then meshed in ANSYS Meshing with 252,565 polyhedral cells.

Methodology

The spheres’ material is considered as quartz and the simulation has been carried out steadily with RNG k-ε model, as turbulence model. The inlet flow rate and the temperature are 0.0125 [kg/s] and 298.15 [K] . We considered solid spheres as heat sources in which each rows of them has different amount of heat in cell zone conditions. Two walls of the packed bed named as wall cavity and wall back cavity have constant flux of 1,999,969.13 and 37,473.8 [w/m2] respectively, but the back wall is considered as transparent with mixed thermal condition. Also due to high temperature of heat sources, the radiation is taken into account in heat transfer and the applied model for its simulation is DO.

Conclusion

The volume renderings for temperature show how it distributes in the domain according to the all convection, conduction and radiation mechanisms. The air enters the domain via two inlets with 298.15[K] then its temperature increases to 998.131 [K]. Also the higher temperature of the spheres, cause of being heat source, is shown obviously in the contours.

Additionally the streamline of the flow, the pressure and velocity volume renderings are presented. For instance the streamline show how the air flows among the spheres making contact with them, as the base physics in the problem, then exits the domain.