Prediction of pressure drop and liquid holdup in trickle bed reactor using relative permeability concept in CFD

A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model based on porous media concept is presented to model the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow in trickle-bed reactors (TBRs). The aim of this study is to develop a comprehensive CFD based model for predicting hydrodynamic parameters in trickle-bed reactors under cold-flow conditions. The two-phase Eulerian model describing the flow domain as a porous region has been used to simulate the macroscale multiphase flow in trickle beds operating under trickle flow regime using FLUENT 6.2 software. The closure terms for phase interactions have been addressed by adopting the relative permeability concept [Sàez, A.E., Carbonell, R.G., 1985. Hydrodynamic parameters for gas–liquid cocurrent flow in packed beds. A.I.Ch.E. Journal 31, 52–62]. The model has been evaluated by comparing predictions with the data (collected under a varied set of laboratory conditions) available in the open literature. It is shown that while being relatively simple in structure, this CFD model is flexible and predictive for a large body of experimental data presented in the open literature.