The effect of activation energy on tubular reactor multiplicity

Abstract : The effect of activation energy on the steady state solutions exhibited by the nonadiabatic tubular reactor is investigated by applying numerical bifurcation techniques to the model equations. As the activation energy is increased, the solution branch becomes more complex and finally evolves into a multiplicity pattern with regions of one, three, five and seven solutions. Only the states of lowest and highest temperature are found to be stable. This work confirms recent results using large activation energy asymptotics and links these results to previous numerical studies of reactor multiplicity employing low to moderate values of activation energy. (Author)