Lagrangian Approach to Jet Mixing and Optimization of the Reactor for Production of Carbon Nanotubes

By: Nasa, National Aeronautics and Space Adm

This study was motivated by an attempt to optimize the High Pressure carbon oxide (HiPco) process for the production of carbon nanotubes from gaseous carbon oxide, The goal is to achieve rapid and uniform heating of catalyst particles by an optimal arrangement of jets. A mixed Eulerian and Lagrangian approach is implemented to track the temperature of catalyst particles along their trajectories as a function of time. The FLUENT CFD software with second-order upwind approximation of convective terms and an algebraic multigrid-based solver is used. The poor performance of the original reactor configuration is explained in terms of features of particle trajectories. The trajectories most exposed to the hot jets appear to be the most problematic for heating because they either bend towards the cold jet interior or rotate upwind of the mixing zone. To reduce undesirable slow and/or oscillatory heating of catalyst particles, a reactor configuration with three central jets is proposed and the optimal location of the central and peripheral nozzles is determined.Povitsky, Alex and Salas, Manuel D.Langley Research CenterLAGRANGIAN FUNCTION; JET MIXING FLOW; CARBON; NANOTUBES; REACTOR TECHNOLOGY; COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS; OPTIMIZATION; PARTICLE TRAJECTORIES; COMPUTER PROGRAMS; FLOW DISTRIBUTION; TIME DEPENDENCE; PERIPHERAL JET FLOW

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1723735019
• ISBN13: 9781723735011
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 30 Pages
• Weight: 0.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 8.5" x 11.0"