Chaos predictability in a chemical reactor

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that despite chaotic oscillations in a chemical reactor, its behavior can be predicted by analyzing intermittent and transient chaos phenomena through numerical simulations.

Contribution

It introduces methods to predict reactor behavior during chaos by identifying intermittent and transient chaos, which was previously considered unpredictable.

Findings

Intermittent chaos occurs at regular intervals.

Transient chaos is limited to specific periods like start-up.

Predictability extends to distant future despite chaos.

Abstract

The dynamics of the tubular chemical reactor with mass recycle were examined. In such a system, temperature and concentrations may oscillate chaotically. This means that state variable values are then unpredictable. In this paper it has been shown that despite the chaos, the behaviour of such a reactor can be predictable. It has been shown that this phenomenon can occur in two cases. The first case concerns intermittent chaos. It has been shown that intermittent outbursts can occur at regular intervals. The second case concerns transient chaos, i.e. a situation when the chaos occurs only for a certain period of time, e.g. only during start-up. This phenomenon makes it impossible to predict what will occur in the reactor in the nearest time, but, makes it possible to precisely determine the values of the variables even in the distant future. Both of these phenomena were tested by numerical simulation of the mathematical model of the reactor.