Application of XDEM as a novel approach to predict drying of a packed bed

Abstract

A majority of solid fuels especially biomass contains moisture, which may amount up to the mass of the dry particles. Thus it is important to determine the details of drying when considering biomass as a fuel. Therefore, the objective of this work is to apply the Extended Discrete Element Method (XDEM) as a numerical simulation framework to prediction of drying within a packed bed reactor. The novel numerical concept resolves the particulate phase by the classical Discrete Element Method (DEM), however, extends it by the thermodynamic state e.g. temperature distribution and evaporation of water content of each particle in conjunction with heat and mass transfer to the surrounding gas phase. The latter is described by a continuous approach namely a set of differential conservation equations as employed in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for porous media. Comparison with measurement was carried out and good agreement was achieved.