Numerical simulation of plate-type ceramic regenerator based on thermal-solid coupling

Plate-type ceramic regenerators play a crucial role in the regenerative thermal oxidiser (RTO). In this study, the internal flow characteristics of RTO ceramic regenerators were simulated using ANSYS Fluent based on the thermal-solid coupling method. An equivalent porous media model was constructed, and its validity was verified by simulations. The effects of the resistance coefficients obtained by the Ergun equation and the experimental fitting on the simulation results were compared. It was found that experimentally fitted resistance coefficients could significantly improve the simulation accuracy of pressure loss (R 2 = 0.987), making them more suitable for real-world engineering applications. Three-dimensional numerical simulations revealed performance differences between different models of plate-type ceramic regenerators: the PT-160 model maintained a high preheating efficiency (92.3%) and high heat recovery efficiency (91.7%) with a pressure drop of only 246.28 Pa and reduced flow velocity to 3.06 m/s. Optimisation of the packing height showed that the PT-160 model could maintain temperature efficiency above 90% at a packing height of 1.4 m by dynamically adjusting the switching time (≤60 s). This study provides a theoretical basis for the optimisation of RTOs and a valuable reference for improving the treatment efficiency of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).