SIMULATIONS AND OPTIMIZATION OF THERMOCHE MICAL TRANSFERS WITHIN SOLID-GAS REACTOR

This paper deals with optimization of heat pipe in a solid-gas chemica l heat-pump. The core of such a system, namely a reactor, contains a p orous solid able to react with a gas coming from an evaporator. The la tter chemical reaction gives off heat. Conversely, if we supply the re active media with heat, the previous chemical reaction occurs in the e ndothermic way and the gas so desorbed goes to a condenser. Two networ ks of gravitational heat pipes perform the energetical transfers betwe en exchangers and porous media relies. The main goal of this work is t o make an optimization of these transfers in shifting both dimension a nd localization of the exchangers. To carry out such a problem, we obv iously need the knowledge of temperature and reaction advancement duri ng any absorption or desorption process. We were face with the choice of an apt-method to figure out the governing non-linear partial differ ential equations are available in the literature. We implemented first the finite difference technique but Ne were quickly compeled into usi ng an advanced numerical method, namely the finite element method. A c omparison between these two approaches has allowed to get the most ada ptative numerical tool as regards to the optimization problem set.