Reactor Network / PSR Simulator


Solve networks of perfectly stirred reactors, mixers and heaters to steady state with Cantera, and sweep one reactor's residence time to find where the flame ignites and where it blows out.

Examples

Mechanism


The gas-phase mechanism for every reactor: a bundled Cantera data file, a Cantera YAML, or a single-file Chemkin mechanism with its thermodynamic data inline. Ideal gas only. Up to 1000 species.


Reactors


Reservoirs hold fixed inlet states. A PSR (perfectly stirred reactor) reacts its contents to steady state; mixers merge streams without reaction; heaters hold a set outlet temperature or lose heat to the environment. Up to 8 nodes.

Node 1Reservoir · inlet
Node 2PSR · psr

Connections


A connection out of a reservoir is a mass-flow controller: give its flow in kg/s, or, into a PSR set by residence time, its share of the inflow (shares add up to 1). Every other node has one outlet whose flow follows from upstream. Nodes without an outlet drain to the exhaust. Loops are not supported. Up to 16 connections.

Flow path

  • inlet → psr → exhaust

Residence-time sweep


Re-solve the network while one PSR's residence time τ steps across a range, each point starting from the previous solution. Shortening τ from a burning reactor finds the blowout (extinction) limit; lengthening it from a cold one finds ignition. A limit is reported as the pair of neighbouring points where the temperature jumps, so it is only as fine as the grid.

Outputs and solver


Conversion is 1 − Yout/Yin of one species against the fresh feed reaching each node. Tables list up to 20 species mole fractions (the largest ones when left empty).