Computational simulation of fluid dynamics in a tubular stirred reactor

The flow and concentration fields in a new style tubular stirred reactor were simulated by simulating the fluids dynamics(CFD), in which FLUENT software was used and the standard k-epsilon model and multiple reference frame(MRF) were adopted. The various values of initial rotating speed and inlet flow rate were adopted. Simulations were validated with experimental residence time distribution(RTD) determination. It is shown that the fluid flow is very turbulent and the flow pattern approaches to the plug flow. The velocity increases from shaft to the end of impeller, and the gradient is enlarged by increasing the rotating speed. Comparison between RTD curves shows that agitation can improve the performance of reactor. As the flow rate increases, the mean residence time decreases proportionally, and the variance of RTD lessens as well. When rotating speed increases to a certain value, the variance of RTD is enlarged by increasing rotating speed, but the mean residence time has no obvious change.