Author(s)

E. Esmaili, N. Mahinpey & C. J. Lim

Abstract

Spouted beds, originally invented in Canada (1955), have been widely used in drying, granulation, catalytic polymerization, residue treatment and coating of several materials. Understanding of gas and particle hydrodynamics behavior in a slot-rectangular spouted bed is important for evaluation of particle circulation rate and gas-solid contact efficiency and also for overcoming scale-up difficulties. Although have been extensively applied, the mechanisms of solid movement in spouted beds are still not completely understood. In this research, computational fluid dynamics (FLUENT 6.3) has been used to perform a complete study on the hydrodynamic behavior of spouted bed using an Eulerian- Eulerial two-phase model. The Eulerian model assumes that both phases can be considered as fluid and also take the interpenetrating effect of each phase into consideration by using inter-phase drag models. The computational work has been significantly reduced using a 2D axisymmetric mesh for the bed, operating at different conditions (i.e. different superficial gas velocities, static bed heights, size of particle). Furthermore, the effect of slot width on the hydrodynamic behavior of the bed has been predicted. The results predicted by numerical simulation have been validated with the earlier experiments conducted. The comparisons have been made in terms of fountain height for various operating conditions. The results show a good agreement between the experimental data and the numerical simulation. Keywords: spouted beds, slot-rectangular, computational fluid dynamics, FLUENT.

Keywords

spouted beds, slot-rectangular, computational fluid dynamics, FLUENT