NUMERICAL LENGTH ESTIMATION FOR TUBULAR FLOW REACTORS

This work was motivated by the engineering problem of determining the optimal length for tubular flow reactors. We considered an isothermal nth-order chemical reaction occurring in a tubular flow reactor with axial missing. The mathematical model describing the problem was a free boundary value one. The free boundary represented the reactor length. In this context we proved a theorem characterizing an upper bound for the free boundary. In order to solve the problem in point we introduced two different numerical methods. First a noniterative method was considered in order to obtain an upper bound of the free boundary. Then we used this upper bound in order to start an iterative method that allowed us to find an approximation of the free boundary. In closing we obtained numerical results either for an even or an odd order reaction.