Case Study: Johnson Matthey Radial Flow CFD Validation
Background and Objectives:
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Achieving an even flow distribution in large packed bed reactors is critical to their performance.
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Johnson Matthey Catalysts needed to directly measure the flow distribution of a fluid through such a reactor.
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Process Tomography offers the opportunity to visualise the contents of vessels and pipelines without disturbing the flow.
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An ITS p2000 8-channel Electrical Resistance Tomography system was used for data acquisition.
Results:
Results from a single measurement plane near the centre of the bed height are shown below.
Figure 1: Tomographic images from one measurement plane after addition of
high conductivity tracer
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A colour scale is used to show variations in conductivity with blue representing the conductivity of the main fluid (water) and red indicating the high conductivity tracer.
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The images clearly show the build up of the tracer near the reactor walls, then the front moves towards the centre and the tracer is distributed throughout the reactor cross-section. The trailing edge of the tracer detaches from the wall and moves towards the axial exit zone.
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ERT technology has been successfully applied to a large scale physical model of a radial flow reactor to demonstrate that the desired flow pattern was being achieved.
Benefits:
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The experimentally derived velocity map agreed qualitatively well with the CFD results, thus going a long way to validating the CFD model and providing Johnson Matthey with the confidence to explore alternative reactor designs.
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Using Tomography on a large scale physical model of a radial flow reactor saved Johnson Matthey a great deal of money validating the CFD model and it was achieved in a much shorter time.
Case Study: Radial Flow CFD Validation
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