Investigation of flow behaviors in a fluidized bed reactor with binary mixture of Geldart-A and B particles

Abstract

Flow dynamics in bubbling and turbulent fluidized beds containing both Geldart-A and B particles were investigated in this research. The numerical model was validated against experimental data, with a 6.16% average deviation. Results show that binary mixture segregation is enhanced as superficial gas velocity decreases. A larger flotsam packing ratio promotes homogeneous flotsam distribution; Second, bed density decreases with increasing bed height or superficial gas velocity. As the flotsam packing ratio decreases from 81.10 to 10.70%, bed density reaches the maximum at 41.50%, indicating the most severe volume contraction; Third, when the flotsam packing ratio decreases, the local mixing index's variances between upper and lower sections in dense phase first increases, then decreases, with stronger radial fluctuation detected; Fourth, as superficial gas velocity or flotsam packing ratio increases, the full mixing height ratio improves; Finally, multivariate correlations for dense phase bed expansion are established, yielding a 3.94% average error. • A modified EMMS drag model was adopted to examine flow features in a bidisperse fluidized bed. • The quantified impacts of superficial gas velocity and packing state on flow are obtained. • Multivariate correlations for dense phase bed expansion were fitted with high accuracy.