Analysis of Flow Dynamics in the High-Flux Gas-Solid Riser Using Trajectory Distances across Attractors Reconstructed from Solid Concentration Signals

Abstract

The study of the entrance and wall dynamics of a high-flux gas-solid riser was conducted using trajectory distances of the reconstructed attractors from solid concentration signals collected from a 76 mm internal diameters and 10 m high riser of a circulating fluidized bed (CFB) system. The riser was operated at 4.0 to 10.0 m/s gas velocity and 50 to 550 kg/m2s solids flux. Spent fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) catalyst particles with 67 μm mean diameter and density of 1500 kg/m3 together with 70% to 80% humid air was used. Solid concentration data were analyzed using codes prepared in FORTRAN 2008 to get trajectories of the reconstructed attractors and their distances apart. Trajectory distances were found to increase from the centre towards the wall indicating the expansion of the attractor. The probability density function (PDF) of the trajectory distances changes from single peak at the centre to multiple peaked profiles in the wall region. Multiple peaked profiles indicate multifractal flow behaviours. Cumulative distribution functions (CDF) of the trajectory distances changes from single S-shaped at the centre to multiple S-shaped profiles in some locations of the wall region indicating multifractal flow behaviours. The PDF distribution of these distances at the entrance section and in the wall region forms different types of statistical distributions showing differences in gas-solid flow structures in various spatial locations of the wall region and the entrance sections. Most of the distributions at the centre fall under the Gumbel max distribution for all flow development sections of the riser, especially at air velocities of 5.5 m/s and 8 m/s showing uniform flow structures. Further, it was found that increase of the number of the phase space reconstruction embedding dimension increases the trajectory distances between the state vectors leading to the expansion of the attractor.