The unsteady state simulation of a set of industrial fixed-bed reactors is presented. The catalytic dehydrogenation of 1-butene into 1-3-butadiene is selected as case study. These reactors operate under reaction-regeneration cycles. Each stage of the process, i.e., dehydrogenation (deactivation by coking), steam purge, oxidative regeneration and evacuation, is simulated by means of the corresponding dynamic model. The kinetic parameters used in the dehydrogenation and regeneration stages for a Cr2O3/Al2O3 catalyst are taken from the literature. The performance of the reactors is investigated for two different operation modes: conventional (CO) and periodic flow reversal (PRFO). The PRFO mode shows significantly lower values for the average bed temperature and residual coke concentrations than those corresponding to the CO mode. This behaviour has a favourable effect on the production rate of butadiene. In addition, the influence of the catalyst sintering is analysed in this paper for both operation modes. The deactivation rate by thermal degradation is lower in the case of PRFO due to the lower average temperature of the catalyst bed. Periodic flow reversal strategies provide an economical and efficient alternative to optimise cyclic processes.