Abstract In order to study the effect of catalyst particle shape on the uniformity of flow field in the bed, the computational fluid dynamics-discrete element coupling method (CFD-DEM) was used to simulate the flow field in a randomly stacked radial bed reactor with irregular shaped catalyst particles. The models of cylinder, 1-small-hole, 1-big-hole, 3-hole and 5-hole were established respectively, and the distributions of bed porosity, velocity and pressure fields in the reactor were analyzed. The results showed that the order of the uniformity of the flow field of different shape granular beds from high to low was cylinder, 3-hole column, 5-hole column, 1-big-hole ring column and 1-small-hole ring column. In the cylinder particle bed, the radial pressure difference between the main flow channels was the highest, the bed porosity was the lowest, the variation of radial velocity and pressure drop of the bed were the smallest along the axial direction, and the fluid distribution was the most uniform.
