Hybrid batch reactor modeling and experimental evaluation of heat transfer process

In this paper a hybrid chemical reactor, known also as the partially simulated reactor, is presented. Such reactor consists of a jacketed vessel and LabVIEW based real-time simulator of a chemical reaction. The reactor can be used for testing advanced control strategies. Experimenting with the hybrid reactor excludes risk of a thermal runaway because the simulated chemical reaction can be stopped at any time. To make the hybrid reactor a highly nonlinear benchmark plant, the reaction parameters must be properly selected, taking into account all the constraints of the designed system. For this reason, preliminary tests using a numerical simulator were performed to avoid time consuming experiments with the hybrid reactor. In our research, we consider three different models of the batch hybrid reactor. Results show that an overall heat transfer coefficient cannot be assumed constant to obtain a good agreement between the simulation and the measurement data. Moreover, the overall heat transfer coefficient varies with flow through the jacket and a dispersion of its values is different for each model.