R Mohammadikhah - Research institute of petroleum industry, Tehran, Iran
A Ziyari - Research institute of petroleum industry, Tehran, Iran
Y Behjat - Research institute of petroleum industry, Tehran, Iran
M Ahmadi-Marvast - Research institute of petroleum industry, Tehran, Iran

In this work, Tehran refinery catalytic reforming unit is simulated via CFD to solve some of the industrial problems like mal-distribution and heavy pressure drop. Reactor under consideration with specified operational conditions is mapped into FLUENT.6.3 to obtain flow field through the reactor. Manipulating inner or outer screen resistance, we are able to remove mal-distribution along the reactor axis. After making the flow distribution uniform, the pressure drop through the bed is minimized. Several geometries are constructed based on the genuine system to find the best choice, whose pressure drop is low and flow distribution is uniform. Results show that if one of the screen resistances whether inner orouter is up to 5e+05 1/m, fluid flows through the bed in a radial form and its distribution becomes completely uniform. Fully radial flow in the reactor decreases pressure drop through the bed, dramatically. Finally, a possible geometry accompanied by optimal bed resistances and additional physical information is proposed to be used instead of the, present system.

CFD, Flow field, Mal-distribution, Pressure drop, Screen resistance