How to Benefit from CFD Simulation

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Siemens Industry Software GmbH Digital Factory Division

What´s About the Catalyst Bed

Once these specifications are defined, the catalyst bed is generated using the built in Discrete Element Modeling capability in the simulation software. The software creates a mesh including boundary layers, then progresses to carry out the CFD simulation, followed by postprocessing to look at radial and axial porosity, velocity profiles, heat transfer, and reactions if necessary.

Performing lab scale tests and validating them in a CFD simulation is an essential part of the scale-up operation. This gives the confidence in robustness and fidelity of the model to make predictions at plant scales where measurements may not be possible.

Determining the power calculation for a varying solids concentration (10 %, 20 %, 30 % and 40 % by wt.) is an example: A four bladed pitched bladed turbine was used to suspend sand (particle size 190 microns) in water at a speed of 600 rpm. The liquid and solid densities were 1,000 and 2,483 kg/m³ respectively. The tank had a height and diameter of 0.34 m whereas the impeller diameter was 0.19 m. Most of the time, it is not possible to find a good match from the geometries and material properties for cases available in literature for factor “s” to those for a given design requirement; therefore the confidence to choose the right power number is very low.

The capabilities available allow reaction engineers to look at the transport processes in various reactor types including packed bed reactors, fluidization, stirred reactors, bubble columns and membrane reactors, as well as all the various high-temperature processes in gas phase reactions. Even in established processes possibilities for improvement are opened up.

* *The authors are working with Siemens PLM, Contact: Phone +49-911-946433

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