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Numerical Testing and Validation of a Model for Laminar Flow Tubular Reactor

Vinod Kallur , M A Lourdu Antony Raj

Non-ideality in the reactors is accounted traditionally using Residence Time Distribution (RTD) studies. However RTD studies are conducted on existing reactors. Therefore accounting for non-ideality at the design stage using RTD is not possible. There are several causes of non-ideality in the reactors. The non-ideality in Laminar Flow Tubular Reactor (LFTR) is due to variation in velocity in the radial direction, diffusion and convection effects of reacting and product species. One peculiar feature of LFTR is the non-ideality due to radial variation in velocity is mathematically deterministic. There is no work reported in the literature that makes use of this deterministic nature of non-ideality except some analytical methods for simple kinetics. The present paper deals with simple mathematical model that makes use of theoretical RTD of LFTR to predict the reactor performance for general kinetics by a numerical method. Testing and validation of the model is done for kinetics for which analytical solutions are not available. Algorithm for numerical testing is developed. The algorithm is used to develop computer code which is used to predict reactor performance and testing. The reactor performances predicted are compared with already well established methods. The results agree well.