(532d) Some Applications and Challenges for Particle Resolved Simulation in Packed Bed Reactors

As a young industrial researcher in the early 1980’s I remember standing on the tube sheet of a multi-tube packed bed reactor consisting of about 25,000 tubes. I noticed that some tubes were black and filled with coked up pellets, while others looked almost new. I wondered what could be the cause of these strange patterns. Despite the gigantic literature on the topic even at that time, there was still a large margin of disagreement between data and correlations for heat (or mass) transfer in packed beds. Tony Dixon was already establishing himself as a leader in the field. Despite having devoted a major portion of his career to the study of heat and mass transfer in packed beds, technical difficulties still remain. In the 21^st century, Tony has led the way in particle resolved CFD simulation of packed beds, seemingly adding one particle at a time with each new talk or paper. In this talk, I will describe some industrial problems that arise at the particle level and some challenges that remain for particle resolved simulation of packed beds.