Numerical Study of Heat and Mass Transfer During Absorption of H2 in a LaNi5 Annular Disc Reactor Crossed by a Tubular Heat Exchanger

In this work, we studied numerically the two dimensional phenomena of heat and mass transfer during the exothermic chemical reaction of hydrogen absorption. These phenomena take place within a thin disk drive filled with a metallic powder of LaNi5 and crossed by cooling and injection tubes of hydrogen gas. A cooling jacket, surrounding its peripheral surface has been added. The commercial ANSYS FLUENT R17.2 CFD simulation code has been used to perform a series of numerical investigations of the arrangement effect of the incorporated cooling tubes, on the heat and mass transfers during the storage process of hydrogen. For the selected optimal configuration, we illustrated the temperature contours for the four configurations proposed at different times and the time average of temperature bed as well as the fraction hydrogen absorbed are assessed in the history curves. Our simulation results have been validated by experimental results found in the literature, and a good agreement has been noticed, which confirms the reliability of our simulation procedure.