Generation of chaotic oscillations in a system with flow reversal

The paper is devoted to examining the effect of a reverse flow on a cascade of two nonadiabatic continuously stirred tank reactors (CSTR) connected wi th stream flow. A suitable numerical method was used to achieve data reduct ion, particularly in the region of transition between periodic oscillations and chaos. Computation results gave period doubling leading to chaos. Sens itivity to initial conditions has also been investigated. It has been shown that there is a dependence between oscillations of the cascade without rev erse flow and dynamic phenomena, which can occur with flow reversal. (C) 19 99 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.