Dispersion Number Identification in an Imbert Gasifier Under Parameter Uncertainty

The problem of identifying the dispersion number associated with the convective-radiative heat dispersion mechanism in an experimental gasification tubular reactor is addressed. The dependency of temperature response characteristics on the intensity and duration of a heat pulse input are characterized on the basis of a set of off-line experiments, finding that for the range of interest: (i) the coefficient of variation of the temporal temperature response depends almost linearly on the dispersion number, and (ii) the related function is robustly invertible with respect to model and experimental uncertainty. This results establishes the feasibility of identifying the key heat dispersion (inverse Peclet) number from a reasonable on-line heat pulse injection test.