CFD Simulations of Radiative Heat Transport in Open-Cell Foam Catalytic Reactors
, Felix Kranz 1, Jonas Wentrup 1, Jorg Thöming 1,2, Gregor D. Wehinger 3 and Georg R. Pesch 1,2,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this paper the authors evaluate the importance of radiation in heat transfer in an open-cell foam with constant heat source in the foam to mimic an exothermic chemical reaction. After an extensive and thorough study they find that radiation heat transfer is important when heat transfer by both conduction and convection are low, and when the temperature and the surface emissivity are high so that radiative flux is also high.
The paper is publishable, with a few corrections and suggestions as noted below.
Minor points
- Line 55: are you sure open-cell foams have high catalyst inventory? Isn’t the low catalyst inventory of wall-coated foams the reason that Tronconi’s group and others are looking at packed foams? It should depend which reactions you are considering also. Maybe some qualifying statements might be better here.
- Lines 232/3: comparing two codes only means that they have no obvious mistakes, or maybe the same mistakes. A better approach would be to take some literature data and compare to that. Can the authors find some appropriate data?
- Line 242: Should be “from the solid to the wall”?
- Lines 292-4: “…a minimum-to-be-expected maximum temperature increase…” is at the least confusing. Please re-word. And I do not see how you can make this claim, just because heat production varies locally does not necessarily mean that the maximum temperature increase will be higher, it must depend on the reaction and the local heat transfer?
- Line 315: maybe qualify the general statement here by “at low flow rates” as it is necessary for convective heat transfer to be low for this conclusion.
- Line 347: again, I have doubts about this, that could be eased by providing some example calculations?
- Line 388: I suggest using “r” as the subscript for radial, and “rad” as the subscript for radiation in eq. 13.
- Line 390 – should this be QSW?
- Line 391: “…as long as temperature …” – it needs the second “as”
- Line 445: “neglect” would be better than “negligence”.
Author Response
Please see attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The work itself is not very innovative, but the work quality is good and comprehensive. So I would like to recommend accept this manuscript. My only minor concern is why the two software provide noticeable different temperature?
Author Response
Please see attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
