CFD Modeling of an Industrial Furnace Reformer and 3D Multi Scale Model for Packed Bed Reactor for Synthesis Gas Production

Abstract

Synthesis gas (Syn gas) is used in many industrial applications such as Direct Reduction of Iron (DRI), Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, and also a source for environmental-friendly clean fuels and chemicals. In Midrex DRI process, syn gas is used to remove the chemically bound oxygen from raw iron-ore without melting. Syn gas is primarily produced from natural gas reforming in a large number of tubular packed bed reactors suspended in a furnace. Combustion of fuel takes places in the furnace supplying the requisite heat for the endothermic reforming reactions. The reactor tubes are made of special alloys and their failure due to uneven temperature or hotspots leads to the production loss or plant shutdown. Therefore, an accurate prediction of tube wall temperature is vital for preventing such tube failures. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a powerful tool that can be used to simulate the turbulence, radiation and combustion in furnace reformer and the tube wall temperature is predicted without employing empirical heat transfer coefficients.