Prediction of Pressure Drop and Holdup for Homogeneous Ternary Mixtures of Spherical Glass Bead Particles in a Three-Phase Fluidized Bed

Abstract

Hydrodynamic characteristics, viz. bed pressure drop and gas holdup, have been studied for ternary mixtures of homogeneous regular particles in a co-current three-phase fluidized bed. For this, a series of experiments have been carried out in a 5-cm diameter column with air as the gas phase, water as the liquid phase, and ternary mixtures of glass beads (1.54, 1.3, and 1.1 mm) as the solid phase. The dependence of bed pressure drop on the average particle diameter, superficial gas velocity, and initial static bed height has been discussed. Based on the dimensional and statistical analyses, correlations have been developed with the system parameters, for both bed pressure drop and gas holdup. Experimental values of bed pressure drop and gas holdup have been found to agree well with those calculated from developed correlations.