Eulerian simulation of heat transfer in a trickle bed reactor with constant wall temperature

This paper reports a study of steady-state heat transfer of gas and liquid flowing through a packed bed with spherical particles of 2.06 mm and constant wall temperature with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFDs). The effect of gas and liquid flow rates on heat transfer in packed beds are discussed. The effective radial bed conductivity (λer) is calculated based on the steady-state two dimensional model. The results of the CFD simulations have been validated with experiments and they are in a good agreement. For most of the cases the results of the CFD simulations deviate from the experimental results not more than 10%. The results show that the effective radial bed conductivity increases with increase of the velocity of gas and liquid. In trickle flow regime the effective radial bed conductivity is much bigger than in a dry gas flow regime.

► Heat transfer in the radial direction increases if we increase the mass flux of the gas or liquid.
► The effect of the liquid flow rate on heat transfer is much more significant than the gas flow rate.
► In trickle flow regime the effective radial conductivity is 2–5 times higher than the dry gas flow.