Additive Manufactured Metallic Reactor with Monolithic Support Grid
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional reactors face limitations in thermal and mechanical strength, especially when handling demanding reactions with high pressures and temperature fluctuations, leading to reduced operational safety and efficiency.
Innovation Solution
An additively manufactured reactor with a monolithically connected housing and pipeline, featuring a support grid between the inner and outer walls, and an open-pored metallic foam cladding for enhanced thermal and mechanical resistance, along with a cascaded design for optimized chemical processes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional reactors are used for demanding reactions with high pressures and temperature fluctuations, then the reactors can handle these conditions, but their thermal and mechanical strength is pushed to limits and operational safety is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The reactor combines metallic foam material with conventional pipeline materials to create a composite structure. The metallic foam provides enhanced thermal and mechanical strength while the pipeline material maintains chemical resistance and operational integrity under high pressure and temperature conditions.
Solution Approach 2:
The metallic foam is applied locally around the pipeline in specific zones where thermal and mechanical stress is highest, rather than throughout the entire reactor. This localized reinforcement provides strength where needed while maintaining overall reactor performance and safety.
2Ease of manufacture
If additive manufacturing is used to create monolithic reactor components, then complex piping systems can be manufactured in a single component, but thermal and mechanical resistance is reduced under high-pressure and high-temperature conditions
Solution Approach 1:
The additive-manufactured metallic foam structure is combined with traditional pipeline materials to create a composite system that leverages the manufacturing flexibility of additive processes while achieving the thermal and mechanical resistance of proven materials under high-pressure and high-temperature conditions.
Solution Approach 2:
The metallic foam's porous structure is designed to provide structural support and thermal management while allowing for efficient heat transfer and maintaining strength-to-weight ratio in the monolithic reactor component.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution provides improved thermal and mechanical resistance, enabling safer and more efficient operation under high-pressure and temperature conditions, while the cascaded design enhances reaction yield and process control.
Implementation Method 1
the cooling medium evaporates again on the surfaces of the metallic foam, thus extracting heat energy from the pipeline
Implementation Method 2
exclusively through material transitions created, for example, by melting processes or diffusion-controlled sintering
Implementation Method 3
exclusively through material transitions created, for example, by melting processes or diffusion-controlled sintering
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to an additively manufactured metallic reactor (2) with a housing (4) and at least one pipeline (6) arranged in the housing (4), wherein the housing (4) and the pipeline (6) are monolithically connected to one another, and the housing (4) has at least one pipeline inlet (8) and one pipeline outlet (10) as well as at least one pipeline feed access (9). The invention is characterized in that a support grid (18) monolithically connected to both walls is arranged in an interior space (13) of the housing (4) between an inner wall (16) of the housing and an outer wall (12) of the pipeline (6).