Study of gas laminar flow in a thermal reactor: Experimental and Numerical comparison

The energy conversion in a thermal reactor has a negative impact on the environment, due to the emission of greenhouse gases. It is also related to energy consumption, which is important for weak yields, and creates problems for reacting flows. The present contribution aims to optimize the operation of energy equipment and prevent their dysfunction. The objective of this study is the development of experimental method for the characterization of gas flows in order to detrmine the residence times distribution (RTD) for gaseous phases. On the other hand, developing a numerical model that combines a discrete granular behavior Discrete Element Method (DEM) and type of approach continues, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) thus allowing optimization and extrapolation facilities of an industrial scale to mitigate the shortcomings observed in the reactors such as, dead zones or poor fluidization, short circuits, etc... Our first approach is based on a finite volume CFD modeling of the behavior of a single-phase fluid, this model allows us to obtain the trajectory of a particle and the residence time distribution. The experimental study performed in parallel, allows us to validate our numerical model and apply it to other configurations.