Reactor engineering and flow modeling

I have made an attempt to provide sufficient information to understand and to define the specific role of computational flow modeling in reactor engineering applications. Discussions on the main features of reactor engineering, computational flow modeling and their interrelationship will help to select appropriate models, and to apply these computational models to link reactor hardware to reactor performance. Mathematical modeling of flow processes (including turbulent flows, multiphase flows and reactive flows) and corresponding numerical methods to solve these model... 

Wen, C.Y., Flow regimes and flow models for fluidised bed reactors, in Recent advances in the engineering analysis of chemically reacting systems (ed. L. K. Doraiswamy), Wiley Eastern Limited, India, 256-287 (1984)... 

Optimal reactor design is critical for the effectiveness and economic viability of AOPs. The WAO process poses significant challenges to chemical reactor engineering and design, due to the (i) multiphase nature of WAO reactions (ii) temperatures and pressures of the reaction and (iii) radical reaction mechanism. In multiphase reactors, complex relationships are present between parameters such as chemical kinetics, thermodynamics, interphase/intraphase intraparticle mass transport, flow patterns, and hydrodynamics influencing reactant mass transfer. Complex models of WAO are necessary to take into account the influence of catalyst wetting, the interface mass-transfer coefficients, the intraparticle effective diffusion coefficient, and the axial dispersion coefficient. " ... 

The first step is to define the objectives of the flow model, and to identify those flow aspects that are relevant for the performance of the reactor. Then, the engineer must identify and quantify the various times and space scales involved, as well as the geometry of the system. These actions allow the problem to be represented by a mathematical model. Creating this model accurately is the most crucial task in the flow modeling project. 

Ranade, V. V., Computational Flow Modeling for Chemical Reactor Engineering, Volume 5 of Process Systems Engineering (G. Stephanopoulos and J. Perkins, Eds.), Academic Press, San Diego (CA, USA) (2002). 

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