DEM-CFD Study on Fluid Flow Through Radial Layered Composite Packed Beds

Abstract

The radial porosity generally have a higher value at the container wall than that in the core part. Consequently, the fluid flows are mal-distributed in packed bed with significant bypass flow at the wall, which lowers the convective heat transfer performance inside the packed bed. To overcome this drawback of packed bed, we developed an effective way to construct the radial layered composite packed bed, which can easily realize placing small particle at the near wall region and large spheres in the core region. Therefore, smaller pores forms close to the container wall and larger channels presented in the core part. This could result in a much homogenous radial porosity distribution, which is benefit to restrain the bypass flow near the wall. In present paper, the packing procedure is simulated by the discrete element method (DEM). Radial layered composite packed bed and traditional packed bed with uniform spheres are compared on radial porosity distribution. By altering the size of spheres ratios in the near wall region different radial layered packings are also generated and compared. Then, the geometries of these packed bed are imported into the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. The fluid flow inside the packed bed is investigated. It finds that the radial layered packed bed has a lower pressure drop with the ordered packing structure. And a much homogenous fluid flow distribution is obtained than the traditional, which is benefit for the heat removal inside the packed bed. This would be useful for the optimum design of packed bed in industry applications.