Inhomogeneous temperature in high temperature fluidized beds

Abstract

In this work, we observe an inhomogeneous temperature distribution within a fluidized bed affects the mixing dynamics and therefore heat transfer performance. High temperature fluidized bed experiments with an initial temperature gradient are performed. As the superficial velocity increases, the bed becomes lightly fluidized. Despite fluidization, the bed temperatures do not converge, and the thermal gradients remain. Eventually the superficial velocity is sufficiently high to completely mix the bed and collapse the bed temperatures together. CFD-DEM coupled simulations are performed to investigate the mixing dynamics. Initial bed temperature differences of 100, 300, and 500 K are simulated with varying superficial velocities to create a regime map. At relatively low superficial velocities, the high temperature regions of the bed begin to bubble before the lower temperature regions due to gas density changes. To fully mix the particle temperatures in the vertical direction, the relative velocity (U/Umf) must be a minimum of 1.30.