Assignment 34, CTF (CH3421)

turn in: May 4,Due

2010 at the start of the class
date: March 14th, 2013

The solution to this FLUENT problem, should be handed in as a short (few pages) report
covering the following aspects: the governing equations, the assumptions underlying these
equations, the non-dimensional parameters governing the problem, the grid, discretisation
schemes, a comparison to experimental data and a discussion. All methodological choices
should be motivated and if possible compared to alternatives.

1 Problem formulation
The goal is to compute the heat transfer properties of a tubular packed bed reactor, where
liquid flows through a collection of randomly packed solid particles. At x = 0 fluid enters the
tube with temperature T0 and uniform, superficial, velocity U0 . The wall is kept at a constant
lower temperature Tw . The diameter of the tube is D and length of the tube L is sufficiently
large such that the temperature profile attains a self-similar profile at x L/3. The problem
is steady and cylindrically symmetric. The goal is to study the overall heat transfer coefficient
h in the self-similar region, by solving both momentum and energy equation in FLUENT.

Tw
Uo
To D

Tw

L
Figure 1: Packed bed schematic

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2 FLUENT description of porous media
Porous media are modeled in FLUENT by the addition of a momentum source term S ~ to the
standard fluid flow equations. The source term is composed of two parts: a viscous loss term,
and an inertial loss term. In this problem we consider a simple isotropic porous medium.

~ = ~v C2 1 |~v |~v
S (1)
2
where ~v is the fluid velocity, is fluid dynamic viscosity, is the permeability and C2 is the
inertial resistance factor. One technique for deriving the appropriate constants involves the
use of the Ergun equation [1], a semi-empirical correlation applicable over a wide range of
Reynolds numbers and for many types of packing, which results in:

d2 3
= (2)
150 (1 )2

and
3.5 (1 )
C2 = (3)
d 3
where is the porosity. In a porous medium FLUENT solves an energy transport equation,
where the conduction flux uses an effective conductivity keff . In steady state this equation
reads: h i
(~v (f Ef + p)) = kef f T + (~~ ~v ) (4)

where Ef is total fluid energy, and ~~ is the fluid stress tensor. FLUENT computed keff as the
volume average of the fluid conductivity (including the turbulent contribution, kt ) and the
solid conductivity ks :
keff = kf + (1 )ks (5)

3 Assignment
Fig. 2 shows several data sets of experimentally determined heat transfer coefficients h as
functions of the superficial mass flow rate f U0 . Each data set corresponds to a different
packed bed, consisting of particles with different properties, such as material, size and shape.
Your assignment is to reproduce one of these data sets, which is indicated by your group
number in table 1. Further details of the experimental setup can be found in [2]. For this
purpose, you will have to conduct a series (say five) of simulations where U0 is varied while
all other parameters are kept constant.
In setting up the computation, you will need to decide on the size of your computational
domain, i.e. the length of the tube. This decision should be based on the so-called entrance
length, which is the length required for the temperature to reach the self-similar profile. Since
h has to be computed within the self-similar region, your domain should contain a few of these
lengths. Another issue which needs some attention is the number and distribution of the grid
nodes. You can start with a uniform mesh consisting of 50 50 grid-nodes in the streamwise
and radial directions. It is important to show that your grid is fine enough such that your
numerical solution does not depend on it. This can be done by computing the same problem
on several grids, with different resolutions. The different meshes can be made by hand in

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GAMBIT or you can use the mesh adaptation tool in FLUENT, which can refine the grid
locally based on local gradients in the temperature profile. Furthermore choices have to be
made concerning turbulence modelling, if needed, and descretization schemes.
Your final result should be plotted together with the corresponding experimental data in a
single graph. Discuss the differences between simulation and experiment. What are possible
causes for the discrepancies? Which assumptions made by FLUENT are not met in reality?

Figure 2: Overall heat transfer coefficient as a function of superficial liquid velocity [2].

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4 References

[1] S. Ergun, Fluid Flow through Packed Columns, Chem. Eng. Prog., 48(2):89-94, 1952.
[2] A. G. Dixon, Wall and particle-shape effects on heat transfer in packed beds, Chem. Eng.
Comm., 71: 217-237, 1988