Influence of Foam Morphology on Flow and Heat Transport in a Random Packed Bed with Metallic Foam Pellets—An Investigation Using CFD

Open-cell metallic foams used as catalyst supports exhibit excellent transport properties. In this work, a unique application of metallic foam, as pelletized catalyst in a packed bed reactor, is examined. By using a wall-segment Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) setup, parametric analyses are carried out to investigate the influence of foam morphologies (cell size φ = 0.45–3 mm and porosity ε = 0.55–0.95) and intrinsic conductivity on flow and heat transport characteristics in a slender packed bed⁽ N = D/d_p = 6.78⁾ made of cylindrical metallic foam pellets. The transport processes have been modeled using an extended version of conventional particle-resolved CFD, i.e., flow and energy in inter-particle spaces are fully resolved, whereas the porous-media model is used for the effective transport processes inside highly-porous foam pellets. Simulation inputs include the processing parameters relevant to Steam Methane Reforming (SMR), analyzed for low (Re_p ∼ 100) and high (Re_p ∼ 5000) flow regimes. The effect of foam morphologies on packed beds has shown that the desired requirements contradict each other, i.e., an increase in cell size and porosity favors the reduction in pressure drop, but, it reduces the heat transfer efficiency. A design study is also conducted to find the optimum foam morphology of a cylindrical foam pellet at a higher Re_p ∼ 5000, which yields φ = 0.45, ε = 0.8. Suitable correlations to predict the friction factor and the overall heat transfer coefficient in a foam-packed bed have been presented, which consider the effect of different foam morphologies over a range of particle Reynolds number, 100 ≤ Re_p ≤ 5000.