CFD Modelling of Coupled Multiphysics-Multiscale Engineering Cases

Many of the engineering problems have multiphysics and multiscale nature. Non-isothermal flows, stirred reactors, turbulent mixing and membrane filtration, are prevalent cases in which the coupling of several physics phenomena is required for the adequate prediction of overall behaviors. Also, a multiscale analysis, where the same phenomenon is analyzed at different scales, can lead to better understanding of the phenomena, which can be used in optimization and to provide adequate scale-up methodologies. Studies incorporating both multiscale and multiphysics analysis are rarely addressed in literature; in fact, these kinds of problems will be the research challenge in the next years. Computer fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques have shown to be promising to deal with these kinds of systems. In this chapter, these are used to implement a multiscale analysis of the hydrodesulphurization (HDS) process for light gas-oil (LGO). The aforementioned is carried out by the analysis of mass an energy transport at: (1) microporous (MP) scale, (2) pseudo-homogeneous catalyst (PHC) scale, and by analysis of (3) momentum and mass transport at reactor scale (RS). In addition, a particular discussion is made regarding the proper establishment of the model, its validation, the use of different boundary conditions, its justification; and the dependence of solutions of parameters and initial and boundary conditions.