Finite Element Flow Modeling in a Carbothermic Reactor

摘要

The inherent complexity of numerous industrial processes in the metallurgical industry poses formidable technical challenges for modeling, design and simulation: consequently, it is exceptionally difficult not only to optimize the operation of traditional plants without extensive experimentation, but also to model and analyze the feasibility and profitability of various novel designs proposed. Most metallurgical unit operations encompass a wide spectrum of phenomena (convection, diffusion, reaction, external field effects) that often occur simultaneously in multiphase configurations. Accurate modeling of complex distributed chemical processes entails the use of partial differential equation (PDE) descriptions which can now be routinely handled using commercial solvers; an attractive feature of the latter is a potential to handle combinations of diverse physical phenomena that occur in complex processes and yield highly coupled nonlinear PDE mathematical models.