Analysis Of Residence Time Distribution Of Fluid Flow By

Axial Dispersion Model

Sugihartoa,b, Zaki Suudb, Rizal Kurniadib, Abdul Warisb and Zainal Abidina
a

Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Bandung Institute of Technology,
Jl. Ganesha 10, Bandung 40132, Indonesia
b
Centre for Applications of Isotopes and Radiation Technology - National Nuclear Energy Agency,
Jl. Lebak Bulus Raya No. 49, Jakarta 12440, Indonesia.
Corresponding author. E-mail: sugi@batan.go.id

Abstract. Radioactive tracer 82Br in the form of KBr-82 with activity 1 mCi has been injected into steel pipeline to
qualify the extent dispersion of water flowing inside it. Internal diameter of the pipe is 3 in. The water source was
originated from water tank through which the water flow gravitically into the pipeline. Two collimated sodium iodide
detectors were used in this experiment each of which was placed on the top of the pipeline at the distance of 8 and 11 m
from injection point respectively. Residence time distribution (RTD) curves obtained from injection of tracer are
elaborated numerically to find information of the fluid flow properties. The transit time of tracer calculated from the
mean residence time (MRT) of each RTD curves is 14.9 s, therefore the flow velocity of the water is 0.2 m/s. The
dispersion number, D/uL, for each RTD curve estimated by using axial dispersion model are 0.055 and 0.06
respectively. These calculations are performed after fitting the simulated axial dispersion model on the experiment
curves. These results indicated that the extent of dispersion of water flowing in the pipeline is in the category of
intermediate.
Keywords: Radioactive tracer, RTD, Dispersion number, Axial dispersion model.
Pacs: 23.20.En, 28.20.Gd

The knowledge of mean residence time (MRT) and

axial dispersion model are a basic requirement to
evaluate the reactor performance The use of axial
dispersion model has been reported for study of flow
dynamics in various reactors, such as trickle bed
reactor [7, 8], packed column [9,10], riser reactor [11].
Recent development of radiotracer methodology has
also been reported [12]. This paper describes
measurement of RTD, determination of MRT and
implementation of axial dispersion model to qualify
the extent dispersion of water flowing in the pipe using
radiotracer technique.

INTRODUCTION
Concept of residence time distribution (RTD)
obtained from injection of various tracers has long
been used for parameter characterization of flow
systems [1]. Among the various available tracer, emitting radioisotopes offer several advantages over
conventional ones such as high detection sensitivity,
in-situ detection, availability in a wide range of
compatible forms, stability under hostile industrial
environment [2-4]
The measured RTD is used to analyze
hydrodynamic behavior of system. In pilot scale
industrial systems, the experimentally measured RTD
is used to optimize the design parameters and to
develop the mathematical model for prediction of the
hydrodynamic behavior of the systems. In addition,
RTD is also used to identify various malfunctions and
qualification of degree of mixing in pilot scale and in
large-scale industrial systems [5,6]

EXPERIMENT
A radiotracer experiments was performed to
measure the RTD of water flowing in a horizontal
stainless steel pipeline of 3 (7.62 x 10-2 m) inner
diameter. The water flows at ambient conditions
gravitically from water tank. 82Br bromide isotope
(half life: 35.7 h and energy 0.776 MeV (85%) as

CREDIT LINE (BELOW) TO BE INSERTED ON THE FIRST PAGE OF EACH PAPER

CP1325, The 4th Asian Physics Symposium An International Event
edited by Khairurrijal, M. Abdullah, W. Srigutomo, S. Viridi, and Novitrian
2010 American Institute of Physics 978-0-7354-0880-7/10/$30.00

257

KBr-82 was used as a tracer). 82Br isotope was

produced in nuclear reactor and about 1 mCi of
activity was used in this experiment. The tracer was
injected instantaneously into the inlet feed line through
an injection point at the top of the pipeline using a
disposable plastic syringe. The tracer was injected
after the water flow achieving steady state. The tracer
movement was monitored using two collimated
NaI(Tl) scintillation detectors (Ludlum Measurement,
U.S.A) separated by a distance of 3 m. The first
detector (D1) and the second detector (D2) were
placed at the distance of 8 m and 11 m from the
injection point respectively. Due to the reason of
interfered signal from injected tracer and the flow is
not fully developed yet, no detector is placed near the
injection point [13]. The detectors were connected to
12 channels data-logger (Ludlum Measurement,
U.S.A). The data-logger has been setup to record 900
data points at time interval of 1 second. The tracer
concentration was recorded until the radiation level
comes to the background level. The recorded data was
transferred to the computer for subsequent analysis.

where i= 1 for experimental RTD curve of D1 and i =

2 for experimental RTD curve of D2. The difference of
the first moment of the two curves gives the MRT of
process material in the system. Thus:
(2)
where,
and
are values of the first moments of
RTD curve of D1 and D2 respectively. The theoretical
MRT ( ) of the fluid in a closed system is given as:
(3)
is volume of pipeline within two detectors
where
(m3) and is volumetric flow of water (m3/s). For a
normally operating closed system the theoretical and
the experimentally measured MRT should be the same.
As the system was operated normally during the
course of experimental time, it was assumed that the
system was time-invariant that the quantity of
measurement including the volumetric flow was
considered constant. Based on Eq. 2, the calculated
MRT was 14.9 s, and therefore the linear flow rate of
water was 0.2 m/s.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Residence time distribution and model simulation

The experimental data obtained from this

experiment is called residence time distribution (RTD)
curves which represent relationship between radiation
intensity (
vs. time ( , as presented in Figs. 1 and
2. Different signal height of these two curves is mostly
due to difference of detectors efficiency and
contribution of geometrical arrangement of the
collimators. No background correction was performed
because half life of tracer is far high compared to time
duration of the experiment. Most properties related to
flow such as mean residence time, linear velocity or
volumetric flow and flow pattern can be obtained from
the experimental RTD curves.

The residence time distribution (RTD) is a

characteristic function of continuous process systems
and is defined as a normalized response of the system
to an ideal impulse injection of stimulant in the form
of -Dirac function [1]. If an ideal impulse of tracer is
injected at the inlet of the system at time t = 0 and its
concentration is measured as a function of time at the
represents the fraction of the tracer
outlet, then
having residence time between time interval
). In other words
is the probability for
(
a tracer element to have a residence time between
) and it is stated as:
interval (

Determination of Mean Residence Time

(4)
Mean residence time (MRT) basically can be
determined by peak to peak method and first moment
method. As can be seen from Figs.1 and 2 that the
shape of the RTD curves are fluctuated and are not
perfectly Gaussian like. For such situation moment
method gives better result in determining the MRT
based on analyzing of RTD curves [2,7].
First moments ( ) of the experimental tracer
concentration curves were determined using the
following relation [1-2,7,9]:

Normalization of above equation becomes

=1

(5)

is the tracer concentration

where : i = 1,2,.n,
is residence time distribution function.
and
Ideally, the slow water flow in the pipeline should
be plug flow but some axial intermixing mainly due to
fluid velocity gradients is always inevitable. The mass
balance equation for axial dispersion model in
dimensionless form is written as [1]:

(1)

258

square error (RMS) or absolute deviation error (ADE)

are chosen as the optimum values [8]. Thus:

(6)
dimensionless
tracer
where:
is vessel dispersion number
concentration,
is Peclet number),
is
(reciprocal to
mean linear velocity, is axial dispersion coefficient,
is tracer concentration at time ,
is tracer
concentration at time = 0,
is dimensionless
distance, is distance variable and
is dimensionless time.
The Peclet number ( ) can be considered as the
ratio between the transport rate by convection and
transport rate by dispersion. The physical meaning
could be understood from the following two extremes
[2,7].
is infinite the dispersion rate is
In case
negligible compared to the convection rate and the
flow is said to be ideal plug flow.
approaches zero the convection rate is
In case
much slower than the dispersion rate and the flow
is said to be completely mixed flow.
Solution of Eq. (6) is different for different
boundary conditions. There are four physical boundary
conditions encountered in industrial system, i.e.
closed-closed, open-closed, closed-open and openopen. In this experiment, the system is considered as
open-open system, therefore the solution of Eq. 6 for
this experiment is written as [1]

= minimum

(8)

for each of the two

The model parameter
RTD curves (D1 and D2) calculated based best curve
fitting of Eq. 7 were 0.05 and 0.06 respectively
indicating that the extent of dispersion of water
flowing in the pipeline is in the category of
intermediate. Errors for each fitting curve as shown in
Figs. 1 and 2, calculated based on Eq. 8 were 0.162
and 0.105 respectively.

FIGURE 1. Fitting RTD model on RTD experiment at

the detector 1 (D1), 8 m from injection point.

(7)
with boundary conditions at
(at the inlet):
and at
(at the outlet):
.
One of the oldest and the simplest techniques of
parameter estimation is the moments method, which
involves the comparison of variances of the model and
experimental distribution function. Unfortunately there
are some inherent computational errors involved in the
variance of the measured response curves. In addition
to inherent computational error, the presences of the
tail due to the small value of concentration also
contributes a large error for the computed moments
[2,8].
The disadvantage of the moment method could be
avoided by fitting the complete model RTD curve with
the experimental RTD curve. The curve fitting method
is used in this experiment to fit the two curves and to
obtain the optimum model parameters. The quality of
the fit is judged by choosing the model parameters to
minimize the sum of the squares of the differences
between the experimental and model computed curve
)
The values of the model parameters (MRT and
corresponding to the minimum value of root mean

FIGURE 2. Fitting RTD model on RTD experiment at

the detector 2 (D2), 11 m from injection point.
It is worth to note that the Eq. 7 is based on
assumption that tracer injection should follows
instantaneous injection as described by Dirac deltafunction
. In practice such pulse injection is
difficult to realize. However, it is sufficient that the
variance caused by a non-ideal injection is much
smaller than the expected variance caused by the
dispersion in the investigated system [14]
CONCLUSION

259

Conclusion drawn from this experiment is that the

flow velocity of water in the pipeline is 0.2 m/s. Model
estimated by axial dispersion model
parameter
for each RTD curves is around 0.055 indicating the
extent dispersion of water flowing in the pipeline is in
the category of intermediate. Fitting error may result
from inappropriate of tracer injection.

REFERENCES
1. O. Levenspiel, Chemical Reaction Engineering,
2ndEds, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1972, Cp.9
2. IAEA, Radiotracer Residence Time Distribution
Method for Industrial and Environmental
Applications, TCS, 31, Vienna, IAEA, 2008, Cp.5
3. J. Thn, R. itn, J. Kluso and T. echk,
Analysis and Diagnostics of Industrial Processes
by Radiotracers and Radioisotope Sealed Sources,
Praha, VUT, 2000
4. J.P, Leclerc, S. Claudel, H.G, Lintz, O.Potier and
B. Antoine, Oil and Gas Science and TechnologyRev. IFP 55, 159 169 (2000)
5. G.Reed, Measurement of Residence Times and
Residence Time Distributions, in Radioisotope
Techniques for Problem Solving in Industrial
Process Plants, edited by J.S Charlton, Glasgow,
Leonard Hill, 1986, pp. 112-137
6. IAEA, Guidebook on Radioisotope in Industry,
Tech.Rep.Series, 316, Vienna, IAEA, 1990, Cp.4
7. H.J. Pant,Studies on Process Dynamics of
Industrial Systems Using Nuclear Techniques,
Ph.D. Thesis, University of Mumbai, 2001
8. H.J. Pant, A.K, Saroha and K.D.P, Nigam,
Nukleonika 45(2), 235-241 (2000)
9. Z. Stegowski, , Nucl. Geophys 7(2), 335-341
(1993)
10. V. Blet, Ph. Berne, C. Chaussy, S. Perrin, and D.
Schweich, Chem. Engg. Sci, 54, 91-101 (1999)
11. P. Vitanen, Measuring and Modelling of Particle
Fluid Flow in a Riser Reactor, VTT Publication
88, 1992
12. P. Berne and J. Thereska, App. Rad and Isot, 60,
855-861 (2004)
13. V. Blet, P. Berne, F. Tola, X. Vitart and C.
Chaussy, Appl. Rad and Isot 51, (1999)
14. A. Kreft and A. Zuber, Int. J of Appl. Rad and Isot
30, 705-708 (1979)

260

Copyright of AIP Conference Proceedings is the property of American Institute of Physics and its content may
not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written
permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.