An Analysis on the Effectiveness of CFD Modeling of Heat Transfer in a Pilot-scale Low-N Fixed Bed Reactor

Walls, Gregory Frederick

Student Work

An Analysis on the Effectiveness of CFD Modeling of Heat Transfer in a Pilot-scale Low-N Fixed Bed Reactor

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The purpose of this project was to determine whether or not CFD modeling could be used to simulate the heat transfer in a pilot-scale low-N packed-bed reactor. Fluent 6.3.26 was used to simulate four 16- centimeter segments of a packed bed with available experimental data on inlet and outlet temperature profiles. Two different models were used (gaps and bridges) to model the contact points between the particles and the wall. It was found that the bridges model has a slightly greater accuracy when compared to the experimental data than the gaps model, although both models significantly over- predicted the temperature at the center of the bed. In conclusion, the CFD simulation gave an overall high level of correlation to the experimental data

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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