Mixture of Particles' Influence in Computer Simulations of a Spouted Bed

Abstract

This article aims to assess the influence of the way of simulating monoparticles as just monoparticles or as a mixture of particles, the latter, unlike the first, considering the effect of particle-particle interaction. The Eulerian–Eulerian multiphase model is used in the computational simulation of fluid dynamics of spouted beds and compared with experimental data. A half column of cylindrical spouted bed with a full plane glass attached to the front open surface of the bed as the transparent window was used for observation and photographing. Images of solid flows were recorded using a high speed camera (2000 frames per second). Glass beads with a diameter of 0.00368, 0.005 and 0.00252 mm are used as bed material. The simulated characteristic fluid dynamic curves of spouted bed for 0.15 m static bed heights (Ho) were obtained with good agreement with experimental data when the monoparticles was simulated as a mixture of particles with mixture’s percentage of 50%. The same occurred for the simulation of vertical velocities of particles profile, that is, when the monoparticles was simulated as a mixture of particles with mixture’s percentage of 50% we observed a more approach to the experimental data. It was also observed that the air concentration distribution seem to be independent of the changing of the composition.