1998 Volume 77 Issue 6 Pages 485-491
Catalytic combustion of propane/air mixture in a honeycomb monolith catalyst was investigated. Both experiment and numerical simulation were made at 573K inlet temperature, 0.48 to 1.74 m/s inlet velocity, and 0.15 to 0.30 equivalence ratio. In the experiment, gas temperatures were measured with thin thermocouples, and substrate temperatures with an optical fiber thermometer. In the numerical simulation, a two-dimensional, steady state model was developed to calculate the velocity, temperature, and propane concentration in the catalyst. In the model, chemical reaction on the catalyst surface was assumed to be one-step oxidation, with Arrhenius type reaction rates; reaction in the gas phase was neglected. Calculated temperature profiles agree qualitatively with those experimentally obtained.