Analysis of wiped film reactors using the orthogonal collocation technique

Abstract

Transport equation for ARB polymerization in wiped film reactors have been written. These have been reduced to the moment generation equations and using a suitable moment closure approximation, the zeroth and the second moments of the polymer have been numerically solved using the finite difference as well as the orthogonal collocation techniques. In the numerical solution by the finite difference technique, it is necessary to divide the dimensionless film thickness into at least 250 grid points to obtain stable results. The use of nine collocation points by the orthogonal collocation technique gives results close to those by the finite difference method and leads to considerable computational saving. The transport equations for the bulk and the film are found to involve four dimensionless parameters, and their effect upon the polymer formed at the end of the reactor has been studied.