Using an illustrative sphere packing assembly, it is demonstrated that flow structure and wall heat transfer patterns in low aspect ratio fixed bed reactors are more realistically modelled by properly accounting for the discrete void fraction variations. A 3D network-of-voids (NoV) model has been devised to characterise and examine the discrete flow and heat transfer phenomena in a low aspect ratio packed bed with d(t)/d(p) = 1.93. The model as formulated is deliberately designed to be not too complicated so as not to place severe demands on computational resources. Hence, the model can potentially easily be applied to simulate the typically large sets of tubes (often comprising more than 10,000) in the case of industrial multi-tubular reactors, where every tube is different due to the random insertion of the packing particles. Because of its simplicity, the model offers an opportunity of coupling the individual catalyst pellet level transport with the complex interstitial flows at the reactor scale. Illustrative studies of this NoV model on a random packed bed of spheres predict large variations of discrete in-void angular velocities and consequently wall heat transfer coefficients within a single tube. The wide variations of wall heat transfer coefficients imply that the different angular sections of the tube will transfer heat at radically different rates resulting in potentially large temperature differences in different segments of the tube. This may possibly result in local temperature runaway and/or hot spot development leading to several potentially unanticipated consequences for safety and integrity of the tube and hence the reactor. The NoV model predictions of the overall pressure drop behaviour are shown to be consistent with the quantitative and qualitative features of correlations available in the literature. (C) 2010 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.