A MARKOVIAN INTENSITIES APPROACH FOR PREDICTING THE BEHAVIOR OF NONISOTHERMAL CHEMICAL REACTORS

The Markovian intensities approach proposed by Gutsche and Hartmann (1 995) for predicting the dynamic as well as the steady-state behaviour of chemical reactors is expanded to the non-isothermal case. In compar ison with the isothermal case three additional activities are required . The first activity is the derivation of a runaway criterion based on the ratio of the overall Markovian intensity of heat generation to th e overall intensity of heat removal. The new criterion is more general than formerly developed ones because it comprises all single mass and heat transport processes occuring within the reactor. Secondly, the i ntensity ratio is utilized to estimate a characteristic temperature ap proximating the actual temperature rise in the non-isothermal reactor. This temperature rise is taken in the final activity to predict the d ynamic and steady-state behaviour under nonisothermal conditions. A nu mber of simulations demonstrate that the new procedure is applicable t o complex non-isothermal catalytic reactors.