The effect of time-periodic heat flux oscillations in the steam reformer

Abstract The effective method to increase heat transfer in the steam reformer has been investigated in this paper. The heat must be supplied to an endothermic steam reformer. Most of the heat is transferred from the reactor wall. The convective heat transfer rate can be improved according to periodical change of the heat flux of the plate, and the fuel conversion is in proportion to the heat transfer rate. In this work, correlation between the performance of the steam reformer and the time-periodic heat flux oscillation has been investigated. For this analysis, chemical reaction models in porous medium are incorporated under the transient state. Three types of heat flux wave pattern as an operating parameter are compared. However, total fuel conversion is not affected by these parameters although heat flux is time-periodically changed.