Chapter 5
Two-Step Exothermic Chemical Reaction
for Heat Transfer Investigation
in a Convective Cylinder
R. S. Lebelo and O. D. Makinde
Abstract In this article, the investigation of transient heat in a stockpile whose
materials react spontaneously with the oxygen trapped within it is carried out. A
reactive material in this context refers to any substances that contain carbon or hydrocarbons and readily react with oxygen in contact. The process whereby a carbon
containing material reacts automatically with oxygen is called exothermic chemical
reaction. The study is modelled in a domain that is cylindrical and loses heat by
convection to the surrounding environment. The combustion process for the heat
transfer study is very complicated and nonlinear in nature, and therefore, the partial
differential equation governing the problem cannot be solved exactly, but numerically. For this purpose, the Finite Difference Method (FDM) was employed to solve
the problem. The heat transfer investigation is performed by observing effects of
selected embedded thermo-physical parameters like the reaction rate on the temperature of the system. The thermo-physical parameters may either increase or reduce
the temperature of the system during combustion of reactive materials. The results
obtained indicate that the rate of reaction and some parameters increase the temperature profiles during combustion, whereas the heat loss parameter lowers the levels of
the temperature. The results are presented graphically and discussed appropriately.
Keywords Two-step exothermic chemical reaction · Heat transfer investigation ·
Convective cylinder · Finite difference method
5.1 Introduction
Heat transfer investigation of in stockpiles of combustible materials attracted the
attention of many researchers in the past years. This is because of applications of heat
R. S. Lebelo (B)
Vaal University of Technology, Vanderbijlpark 1911, South Africa
e-mail: sollyl@vut.ac.za
O. D. Makinde
Stellenbosch University, Saldanha 7395, South Africa
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
J. Xu and K. M. Pandey (eds.), Mechanical Engineering and Materials,
Mechanisms and Machine Science 100,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68303-0_5
49
Two-Step Exothermic Chemical Reaction
for Heat Transfer Investigation
in a Convective Cylinder
R. S. Lebelo and O. D. Makinde
Abstract In this article, the investigation of transient heat in a stockpile whose
materials react spontaneously with the oxygen trapped within it is carried out. A
reactive material in this context refers to any substances that contain carbon or hydrocarbons and readily react with oxygen in contact. The process whereby a carbon
containing material reacts automatically with oxygen is called exothermic chemical
reaction. The study is modelled in a domain that is cylindrical and loses heat by
convection to the surrounding environment. The combustion process for the heat
transfer study is very complicated and nonlinear in nature, and therefore, the partial
differential equation governing the problem cannot be solved exactly, but numerically. For this purpose, the Finite Difference Method (FDM) was employed to solve
the problem. The heat transfer investigation is performed by observing effects of
selected embedded thermo-physical parameters like the reaction rate on the temperature of the system. The thermo-physical parameters may either increase or reduce
the temperature of the system during combustion of reactive materials. The results
obtained indicate that the rate of reaction and some parameters increase the temperature profiles during combustion, whereas the heat loss parameter lowers the levels of
the temperature. The results are presented graphically and discussed appropriately.
Keywords Two-step exothermic chemical reaction · Heat transfer investigation ·
Convective cylinder · Finite difference method
5.1 Introduction
Heat transfer investigation of in stockpiles of combustible materials attracted the
attention of many researchers in the past years. This is because of applications of heat
R. S. Lebelo (B)
Vaal University of Technology, Vanderbijlpark 1911, South Africa
e-mail: sollyl@vut.ac.za
O. D. Makinde
Stellenbosch University, Saldanha 7395, South Africa
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
J. Xu and K. M. Pandey (eds.), Mechanical Engineering and Materials,
Mechanisms and Machine Science 100,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68303-0_5
49