Research on Heat Transfer Function Modeling of

Plastic Waste Pyrolysis Gasification Reaction kettle

Zhiyi Fu Junhong Wang Chengzhong Yang
the Institute of the Institute of the Institute of
Information and Control, Information and Control, Information and Control,
School of HangZhou School of HangZhou School of HangZhou
DianZi University, DianZi University, DianZi University,
HangZhou, China HangZhou, China HangZhou, China

Abstract—Plastic waste is a common waste in household waste,
because of the characteristic that it’s difficult to degrade, the
treatment of plastics waste has been a problem. In this paper, the
method of pyrolysis and gasification is used to treat the plastic
waste harmlessly. Now design the process of the plastic waste
pyrolysis and gasification, as well as a new plastic waste pyrolysis
reaction kettle. In the analysis of the thermal conductivity system
of the reaction kettle, the mathematical model of the cylinder wall
is established, and the transfer function of the thermal conduction
system is calculated. Then it can be analyzed after getting the
results of the mathematical simulation. It is concluded that using
the transfer function is feasible to calculate and analyze the heat
transfer of the thermal conduction system of the reaction kettle.
Index Terms—transfer function,mathematical model,heat
transfer,cylinder wall.
I. I NTRODUCTION
With the continuous development of China’s economy and
the improvement of people’s living standards. China’s daily
waste production is also increasing, so the treatment of garbage
has become particularly important. Among them, the plastic
waste is difficult to break down and become a headache
problem.[?]
The main methods used in the past are landfill and in-
cineration, but they all have a different degree of harm to
the environment, so need take another method to harmless
treatment of plastic waste. Plastic waste pyrolysis and gasi-
fication is one of the means of disposal of plastic waste,
through the safe and efficient environmental technology of
pyrolysis and gasification, can turn environmentally harmful
plastic waste into useful energy, to achieve the waste of plastic
recycling and make contributions to China’s environmental
protection[?], [?].In the process of pyrolysis and gasification,
the most important thing is the temperature control in the
reaction kettle. Therefore, it is necessary to calculate and
analyze the temperature field of the thermal conduction system
of the reaction kettle so as to have a positive effect on the
control of the plastic waste pyrolysis process[?].
By using the knowledge of heat transfer theory and control
theory, it is convenient to describe the heat conduction process
and characteristics in the reactor, and it has a great effect and
significance on the simulation of the system.
In this paper, a waste plastic refinery pyrolysis reaction
kettle is designed and a simple and convenient mathematical
model is established. Analyze and calculate the heat transfer
process in the reaction kettle. Finally get the transfer function
of model, study and simulate temperature field.
II. T HE PHYSICAL STRUCTURE OF REACTION KETTLE .
The traditional waste plastic pyrolysis reaction kettle is
generally vertical tank,or is not rotating horizontal tank,its
effective volume and heating area are very limited,a small
amount of feeding, equipment,short life,can not be continuous
production and large-scale Industrial, and the temperature is
unstable, will eventually affect the pyrolysis reaction effec-
t,resulting in low efficiency of plastic waste pyrolysis.
The pyrolysis reaction kettle used in this paper contains two
cylinders,including an outer cylinder and an inner cylinder.The
inner cylinder is provided with a driving device for driving the
inner cylinder to rotate,and the plastic waste can be sufficiently
pyrolyzed by rotation. The both ends of the inner cylinder are
provided with a feed inlet and a discharge port,and the plastic
waste enters the inner cylinder through the conveyor belt from
the inlet,and the product after pyrolysis is discharged from
the discharge port.The source of heating is hot steam.The hot
steam enters the reaction vessel from the inlet of the outer
cylinder,and the heat is introduced into the inner cylinder
by heat exchange in the outer cylinder,thereby causing the
waste resin of the inner cylinder to reach the temperature of
pyrolysis.
III. T HE MODEL OF REACTION KETTLE AND TRANSFER
FUNCTION
A. The Model of Reaction Kettle
In the control theory, the concept of transfer function can be
drawn. In recent years, the transfer function has been widely
applied to various physical systems. Therefore, in the thermal
system, the traditional solution method may be more complex,
you can use the transfer function to calculate it.
As the pyrolysis occurs in the inner cylinder, the outer
cylinder mainly plays a role of protecting and allowing hot
steam to pass through. Therefore, the temperature field in the
whole reaction kettle is mainly the temperature field of the

‹,((( 

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 Then take the Laplace transform of equation (1) and can
get the following formula:
s d2 T (r) 1 dT (r) t0
T (r) = + + (4)
a dr2 r dr s
Among them:
 ∞
T (r) = t(r, τ )e−δτ dτ (5)
0
Suppose s = am2 , general solution of the equation (4) is
as follows:
T (r) = C1 J0 (mr) + C2 Y0 (mr) + A (6)
In the formula, J0 (mr) is the zero-order first-kind modified
Bessel Function, Y0 (mr) is called the zero-order variant
Neumann Function (the second-kind Bessel Function)[?], [?],
C1 ,C2 ,A are all the functions of s. According to the initial
conditions and the properties and characteristics of the Bessel
Fig. 1. The one-dimensional cylindrical wall model
function,can conclude that C2 and A in the above formulas
are 0 and t0 /s respectively.So the final can be obtained by
the waste plastic pyrolysis reaction kettle temperature field
inner cylinder. In order to facilitate the analysis and calculation equation is as follows:
of the temperature field, first need to establish a simple t0
T (r) = C1 J0 (mr) + (7)
mathematical model. According to the physical structure of the s
reaction kettle, because the reaction kettle is a rotating axis of Then the Laplace transform of the boundary condition
symmetric objects, temperature along the axial is uniform, can equation (3) is obtained. After the result is connected with
approximately ignore the axial temperature changes, it can be the equation (7), can get the expression of C1 as follows:
the reaction kettle inner cylinder simplified as one-dimensional
F (s) − ts0 α
Steady-state cylindrical wall thermal conductivity model, and C1 =  (8)
dJ0 (mr) 
set the thermal system is linear[?], [?].The fig.1 indicates that dr  + λ J0 (mr1 ) λ
α
r=r1
the model of one-dimensional cylindrical wall.Assumptions
are the following: The resulting C1 is substituted into the expression of the
(1)ignore the temperature change due to fouling, fouling, wear reaction kettle temperature field, and finally the mathematical
and deformation of the heat transfer surface. expression of the temperature inside and outside the cylinder
(2)the surface of the outer cylinder is completely insulated, wall[?] can be obtained:
the heat will not run outside the reaction kettle. F (s) − ts0 α t0
T (r1 ) =  J0 (mr1 ) + (9)
(3)the initial temperature of the inner cylinder is uniform. dJ0 (mr)  λ s
dr  + λ J0 (mr1 )
α
r=r1
B. The Calculation of Transfer Function
F (s) − ts0 α t0
Under the above assumptions, the thermal differential equa- T (r2 ) =  J0 (mr2 ) + (10)
dJ0 (mr) 
tion of the system[?] is as follows: dr  + λ J0 (mr1 ) λ
α s
r=r1
1 ∂t(r, τ ) ∂ 2 t(r, τ ) 1 ∂t(r, τ ) In addition suppose:φ(τ ) = f (τ ) − t0 .
= + (1)
a ∂τ ∂r2 r ∂r  ∞
Initial conditions is as follows: φ(s) = φ(τ )e−δτ dτ (11)
0
t(r, 0) = t0 (2) then the mathematical model expression can be rewritten
Boundary conditions is as follows: into a transfer function form.
 According to the definition of the transfer function, the
∂t(r, τ )  α transfer function can be determined that the relationship be-
 = − [t(r1 , τ ) − f (τ )] (3)
∂r r=r1 λ tween the object output and the input. The transfer function
Which t is the temperature of the cylinder wall, τ is the time, describes the response of the cylinder wall to the external
a is the cylinder wall thermal diffusivity, r1 is the outer surface excitation.
So the response of the cylinder wall inside and outside
radius of the cylinder wall, r2 is the inner surface radius of
surface temperature to hot steam temperature is as follows:
the cylinder wall, α is the surface heat transfer coefficient, λ
is the thermal conductivity of the cylinder wall, f (τ ) is the T (r1 ) − t0
s
= G1 (s) (12)
thermal steam temperature outside the cylinder wall. φ(s)



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 T (r2 ) − t0
reaches 35 minutes, The temperature inside and outside the
s
= G2 (s) (13)
φ(s) surface has been basically stable.
Among them: In the pyrolysis process of waste plastics, the temperature in
the reaction kettle needs to be controlled at about 300 degrees
J0 (mr1 ) α centigrade, so it is necessary to adjust the temperature of the
G1 (s) =  (14)
dJ0 (mr) 
dr  + αλ J0 (mr1 ) λ hot steam to control the temperature of the reaction kettle. In
r=r1 the actual process, the temperature of the hot steam is set at
J0 (mr2 ) α 450 degrees centigrade.The fig.3 indicates that the tendency of
G2 (s) =  (15) reaction kettle outside and inside surface temperature to the
dJ0 (mr)  λ
dr  + λ J0 (mr1 )
α
hot steam at 450 degrees centigrade.After heating the reaction
r=r1
kettle for a period of time, the temperature of the reaction
IV. M ATHEMATICAL SIMULATION
kettle reaches a steady state. When the temperature of the
In order to better analyze the mathematical model of the reaction kettle needs to be increased, it can be controlled
temperature field of the whole thermal conductivity system, it by increasing the temperature of the hot steam.The fig.4
is necessary to simulate the mathematical
 model. indicates that the tendency of reaction kettle outside and inside
From the known condition m = s/a and the property surface temperature to the hot steam from 450 to 500 degrees
of the first type of modified Bessel Function, J0 (mr) can be centigrade in 10 seconds.
unfolded as follows:
∞
1 r12 s n 400
J0 (mr1 ) = ( ) (16) outside surface

n=0
(n!)2 4a 350
inside surface

∞
 300
1 r22 s n
J0 (mr2 ) = ( ) (17)
(n!)2 4a 250
temperature

n=0
200
By substituting the above equation into the transfer function
150
obtained in the previous chapter, can get the expansion of the
transfer function[?].Under the conditions of the given error is 100

allowed, the parameters of the plastic pyrolysis thermal system

50
are obtained, then can get unit step response of cylinder wall
inside and outside the surface temperature to thermal steam 0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
time
temperature.The fig.2 indicates the cylindrical wall outside
and inside surface temperature changes to the thermal steam
temperature in the unit step. Fig. 3. outside and inside surface temperature to the hot steam at 450 degrees
centigrade

Step Response
0.7
500
hot steam
0.6 480 outside surface
outside surface
inside surface inside surface
460
0.5

440
temperature

0.4
420
temperature

0.3 400

380
0.2
360
0.1
340

0 320
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
time (minutes)
300
0 2 4 6 8 10
time
Fig. 2. the unit step response of outside and inside surface temperature
Fig. 4. outside and inside surface temperature to the hot steam at 450 to
From the above obtained graphs, it can be seen that the 500 degrees centigrade
response of the inner surface temperature to the steam lags
significantly from the outer surface temperature, but when the V. C ONCLUSION
time reaches 25 minutes, the temperature inside and outside In this paper, the pyrolysis reaction kettle for plastics waste
the surface is almost close to the same, and when the time is simplified into a one-dimensional unsteady cylindrical wall



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model. Under certain assumptions, the heat transfer differential
equation is obtained by the knowledge of heat transfer. By ap-
plying the frequency domain analysis method, the differential
equation of heat transfer is solved, and the transfer function of
one - dimensional unsteady cylinder wall thermal conductivity
system is obtained.
Through the simulation of the thermal conductivity system
of the plastic pyrolysis reaction kettle, the curve of the unit
step response of the inner and outer surfaces of the cylinder
wall to the thermal steam temperature is obtained. The ther-
mal conductivity characteristic of the system is analyzed by
the obtained diagram which laid a good foundation for the
pyrolysis analysis and optimization of plastics waste.
In practical engineering, plastic waste pyrolysis thermal
system is not so simple, more complex than the mathematical
model, it will inevitably bring some errors. Therefore, to im-
prove the accuracy of the temperature field of the system also
need to be combined with the results of finite element method,
in order to correct the results of mathematical modeling, which
also needs a deeper study.
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