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Case Study: Johnson Matthey Radial Flow CFD Validation

Background and Objectives:

  • Achieving an even flow distribution in large packed bed reactors is critical to their performance.
  • Johnson Matthey Catalysts needed to directly measure the flow distribution of a fluid through such a reactor.
  • Process Tomography offers the opportunity to visualise the contents of vessels and pipelines without disturbing the flow.
  • 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.

 Tomographic images from one measurement plane
Figure 1:  Tomographic images from one measurement plane after addition of 
                
high conductivity tracer

 

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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:

  • 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.
  • 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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