Cross-flow heat transfer in fixed bed

Radial flow reactor operated at cross-flow heat transfer is focused for large scale methanol synthesis. The effects of operating conditions including the reactor inlet air temperature, the heating pipe temperature and the air flow rate on the cross-flow heat transfer were investigated and results show that the temperature profile of the area in front of the heating pipe is slightly affected by all the operating conditions. The main area whose temperature profile is influenced is located behind the heating pipe. The heat transfer direction is related to the direction of the flow. In order to obtain the basic parameters for radial flow reactor designing calculation, the dimensionless number group method was used for data fitting of the bed effective thermal conductivity and the wall heat transfer coefficient which were calculated by the mathematical model with the product of Reynolds number and Prandtl number. The comparison of experimental data and calculated values shows that the calculated values fit the experimental data satisfactorily and the formulas can be used for reactor designing calculation.