Effect of twist blade distributor on velocity distribution in a swirling fluidized bed

Abstract

Swirling Fluidized Bed (SFB) is one of the liquid-solid interaction in fluidization improved from conventional systems. This system is usually viewable in the power generation, chemical industry, material production and drying processes. Inside the SFB, there is annular blade distributor which will cause the air to pass through and create a swirl motion on the bed. The energy consumption of a fluidized bed system depends on the distributor’s design. The current study has purpose a new design that applies to existing designs of blade inclination angle. The simulation study was conducted using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to obtain the result of velocity distribution and pressure drops on various blade distributor designs. This study uses two (2) twist angle (80° and 100°) via number of blade distributor (40, 50 and 60). In this study, tangential velocity is the main velocity component by reason of the velocity represents the rotating air velocity in fluidization system. Overall, the design of the 100° twist angle and 40 blades distributor are the best distributors of blades compared to others.