Dynamic Characteristics of Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor (CSTR) Part I: Adiabatic Reactor

Abstract

CSTR is a very common reactor type which is widely used in the chemical process industries. It is well-known that its dynamics are nonlinear with a multi-mode behavior. This aspect was and still is an active subject of research with the investigative approach being either mathematical or experimental involving specific reaction systems. In this work a different approach is adopted in which the variation of the damping coefficient value of the linearized reactor’s transfer function is investigated over chosen values/ranges of relevant parameters. Our results indicate that an adiabatic type of such a reactor in which a liquid-phase, 1st-order, irreversible, exothermic chemical reaction takes place can be unstable or stable. If stable, it is either critically damped or overdamped with the latter mode being overwhelming; however, it is never underdamped. Furthermore, even when stable its dynamic behavior can be peculiar depending on certain values of some parameters.