MODELING AND SIMULATION OF HYDRODYNAMICS OF A TRICKLE BED REACTOR

Abstract

Trickle bed reactors are widely employed in petroleum industry to carry out variety of operations such as hydrogenation, hydrocracking, hydrotreating etc. Over the last two decades, many models have been proposed to account for complex interfacial momentum interactions between different phases, but still no consensus is developed on a model to describe different hydrodynamic parameters under different flow conditions with acceptable accuracy. In this study three widely used models for defining the variation of porosity in packed bed of spherical catalyst particles in cylindrical reactors are compared with experimental data. The radial porosity model that best corresponds to the experimental data is further used for carrying out hydrodynamic simulation of Trickle bed reactor. For determining the hydrodynamic parameters, two hydrodynamic models were considered. These models differ in their models for defining momentum interactions between phases. These models are compared based on their predictions of hydrodynamic parameters viz. pressure drop and liquid holdup. The predictions are also compared with experimental values of these parameters. Models compared in this study include- Saez and Carbonell (1985), a pseudo two phase model based on relative permeability concept, and Attou and Ferschneider (1999), a three phase model based on Ergun momentum exchange model.