The Internal Flow Field Simulation Of Tubular Fixed-bed Reactor

Tubular fixed-bed reactor is widely used in the petrochemical industry, the performance of tubular fixed-bed reactor is closely related with the heat transfer mode, fluid flow of reaction medium and the distribution of heat in the reactor. Rational structure and uniform distribution of flow field and suitable temperature field can reduce back mixing and short-circuit, promote efficiency of the reactor and reduce the side reactions.In this paper, the flow field of the tubular fixed-bed reactor is simulated use the computational fluid dynamics method, formed a set of general method for the tubular fixed bed reactor with FLUENT simulation. The paper analyses and evaluates the flow filed from the elements of structure and diameter of import and export and setting and forms of the flow deflector systematically, finally determines the main elements which affect the distribution of the tubular fixed-bed reactor. For the fixed-bed reactor which studies in this paper the main factors affect the performance are the import mode and the form of the flow deflector.The results show that: tangential inlet is better than radial inlet; low-speed fluid has better result than high-speed; an additional flow deflector will get more uniform distribution. The distribution of the flow field is mainly depend on the upper head, distribution of the flow filed in the reactor was great effected of the different forms of flow deflector. The bottom head causes a certain influence on the flow filed. Adopt radial outlet and increase the altitude of the bottom head properly will be more conductive to the equally distribution of the flow field.Through a large number of simulations and comprehensive analysis of optimizations, finally determines the relative optimal program for the scale-up design of the tubular fixed-bed reactor.