Master Thesis: Heat transfer through conduction in packed beds of irregular particle shapes.
Packed beds have large-scale applications in chemical reactors, thermal storage units, heat exchangers, etc. The temperature distribution inside these beds, resulting from internal heat transfer processes or the external wall, is key for process control, product quality and energy efficiency of such processes. Effective thermal conductivity is of greater significance with regard to packed beds or granular systems since it could limit the heat transfer in packed bed reactors. Thus far, models have been developed mainly considering spherical particles and no data exists on non-spherical particles. The goal of this work is thus to study heat transfer through conduction in packed beds with irregular particles.
The main objective of this master thesis is to experimentally determine the effective thermal conductivity of packed beds with various glass particles with sharp edges and to understand the heat transfer in these irregular bed structures. Additionally, comparing with the newly developed extended predictive model (Zehner, Bauer and Schlünder (ZBS) model) for polyhedral particles.
The main tasks are as follows:
- Literature research on heat transfer mechanisms in packed bed
- Determination of parameters of the packed beds such as porosity, particle size distribution and particle shape parameters
- Preparation and conduction experiments to measure the effective thermal conductivity of the beds
- Analysis of measured effective thermal conductivity with the overall bed and particle parameters
- Comparison with predictive effective thermal conductivity model for polyhedral particles
- Suitable interpretation of results in written form and presentation in oral
Start of the thesis: As soon as possible
Supervisors: M.Sc. Simson Rodrigues
Contact: