Velocity, temperature and concentration profiles in a vertical flow reactor

✍ Scribed by W.G. Gray; M.D. Kostin

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1975
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 538 KB
• Volume: 30
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0009-2509
• DOI: 10.1016/0009-2509(75)80059-5

✦ Synopsis

A vertical, adiabatic, steady-state, flow reactor in which a homogeneous chemical reaction takes place has been studied. Release of heat by the reaction sets up density gradients, which cause free convective flow to be superimposed on the laminar upflow. The coupled differential equations of momentum, energy, and mass transfer have been solved numerically by two different finite difference methods. In the first numerical method, the momentum transfer equation formulated in terms of the stream function required large amounts of computer time and storage for solution. In the second method, a simplified form of the momentum transfer equation was solved with a significant reduction of the computer requirements. Velocity, temperature, and concentration profiles have been obtained from the two numerical methods and the results analyzed in terms of dimensionless groups. The excellent agreement which has been found between the two methods confirms the accuracy and usefulness of the simplified method.