Geometry Effect Investigation on a Conical Chamber with Porous Media Boundary Condition Using Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) Technique

The present study is an attempt to introduce the method for optimizing the geometry of the unit process. The comprehensive unit process performances are generated by a CFD engine. The CFD engine can simulate the unit process performances at what ever conditions. Both design geometry and operating variables weree used on the CFD simulation. The burden on a simplified process was taken out from CFD simulation. A complex geometry of a unit process is represented by a secondary reformer. A secondary reformer has a conical volume as a space to undergo the combustion reaction before entering the catalyst bed. This complexity is added by the boundary of the porous solid surface as the top surface of catalyst bed. The spread angle affect the flow pattern in side the conical volume having a porous solid surface as a base. The spread angle above 65o results the disappearing of the recirculation flow. The inlet distance from the porous solid surface also can exhibit different characteristics of recirculation flow. The closer the distance to the porous solid surface, the stronger the recirculation is. The inlet velocity values have no significant effect on the flow pattern. The introduction of a solid volume inside the geometry creates the distortion of the flow pattern. In the application, the inserted solid volume is equivalent to a burner. It means that the use of the burner inherently produces some problems of the flow distribution