CFD Simulation of Heat Transfer with Reactions in Steam Reforming Reactor

An industrial fixed bed reactor for the catalytic steam reforming process is simulated using three dimensional computational fluid dynamics CFD.the reactor is filled with nickel catalyst type . The CFD technique can improve understanding of heat and mass transfer in the tubular reactor . energy equation and 3D Novier -stokes model were solved in order to study the heat transfer and fluid flow in the system. the simulation was carried out at high temperature 750K and pressure 19 bars . the kinetics of methane reforming and the reactions mechanism were obtained from Hou and Hughes 2001. simulation results were successfully validated against some industrial data taken from a hydrogen plant at tehran refinery , iran . simulation results show that axial temperature profile and gas velocity are increased within the reactor. the gas velocity inside the fixed bed reactor rises since total moles of products are more than total moles of the reactants . the pressure variation against tubular reactors length linearly decreases and pressure drop was about 3 bars. it is not possible to get experimental data from inside of reator and only outlet values of the reator can be obtained.

Keywords:

CFD , simulation , steam reforming , fixed bed reactor