Hydrodynamic Study of Gas–Solid Internally Circulating Fluidized Bed Using Multiphase CFD Model

Abstract

In the present work, hydrodynamic study of gas and solid flow in an internally circulating fluidized bed (ICFB) was carried out using the CFD multiphase model. Two- (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) computational meshes were used to represent physical ICFB geometries of 0.186-m and 0.3-m diameter columns. The model approach uses the two-fluid Eulerian model with kinetic theory of granular flow options to account particle–particle and particle–wall interactions. The model also uses various drag laws to account the gas–solid phase interactions. The 2D simulation results by various drag laws show that the Arastoopour and Gibilaro drag models predict the fluidization dynamics in terms of flow patterns, void fractions, and axial velocity fields in close agreement with the Ahuja et al. (2008) experimental data. Three dimensional simulations were also carried out for a large-scale ICFB. The effects of superficial gas velocity and the presence of draft tube on solid holdup distribution, solid recirculation pattern, and gas bypassing dynamics for the 3D ICFB were investigated extensively. The mechanism governing the solid circulation and the pressure losses in an ICFB has been explained based on gas and solid dynamics obtained from these simulations. Predicted total granular temperature distributions in 3D ICFB draft tube and the annular zone are qualitatively in agreement with the experimental data. The total granular temperature tends to increase with the increase in solids concentration in the dilute region (ϵ < 0.1) and decrease with an increase of solids concentration in the dense region (ϵ > 0.1).