Fluid dynamic numerical simulation coupled with heat transfer and reaction in the tubular reactor of industrial cracking furnaces

Abstract

AbstractThe thermal cracking furnace is the heart of the ethylene production process in a petrochemical plant. This paper presents a comprehensive mathematical model containing equations for mass, momentum and heat transfer combined with Kumar molecular kinetic model to describe dynamic behaviors of fluid flow, heat transfer and reaction in the tubular reactor of thermal cracking furnaces. The ‘flow‐reaction’ decomposition strategy is adopted to solve the complex model for implementing the fluid dynamic simulation coupled with heat transfer and reaction in the tubular reactor by a conventional procedure. The proposed mathematical model and the decomposition algorithm are successfully applied to the fluid dynamic simulation in the tubular reactor of a millisecond industrial cracking furnace. The results of dynamic simulation reveal the various transient behaviors of fluid flow, temperature change and species content variation in the tubular reactor under the step disturbance of inlet feedrate. Finally, the performance of the decomposition algorithm is also investigated. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.