Study of fluidized bed freeboard for effect of Geldart A particles shape using particle image velocimetry (PIV)

Abstract

A study was carried out using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) to reveal velocity vector flow fields in the freeboard region of a Geldart A fluidized bed. For the first time the effect of particle shape, was studied for three powder types, namely China clay (platelet-like), Diatomite (spherical) and Quartz (irregular). A bench-scale fluidized bed set-up of perspex glass was used for direct PIV imagining over a substantial inlet gas velocity range. Interestingly the freeboard was not found to be highly turbulent as has been reported in the case of Geldart B particles. Rather a transition regime was observed which was dominated by laminar streamlines and punctuated by short-lived eddies with life span even less than 400 μs. Bed expansion was significantly affected by particle shape. This was explained by an ‘effective cluster size’ hypothesis for the three powder types. The ‘uniformity’ of the velocity field was also quantified for each powder.