Accurate prediction of the effective radial conductivity of highly conductive honeycomb monoliths with square channels

[Display omitted] • Literature models for the effective conductivities of honeycomb monoliths are reviewed. • A new physically consistent model is proposed to evaluate the ke,r of honeycomb monoliths. • Proposed model grants accurate predictions of ke,r over the entire range of void fractions. • The new correlation can be used within 2D pseudocontinuous models of honeycomb-based reactors. In the last 15 years, two-dimensional heterogeneous pseudocontinuous models have been successfully used to simulate the performances of washcoated honeycomb monoliths, with remarkable savings in computational effort with respect to discrete models. The adequacy of such models relies on accurate expressions for the estimate of the effective axial and radial thermal conductivities of the structured catalyst. It is shown that available literature correlations for the calculation of the effective radial conductivity suffer from a series of shortcomings. A novel enhanced engineering correlation for the prediction of the effective radial conductivity is proposed and compared with existing correlations.