Numerical analysis of heat and mass transfer through beds of spherical and non-spherical elements

Abstract

Abstract Many issues related to mass and heat transfer through beds of granular materials are still not fully understood. In this work, non-isothermal turbulent flow is analysed within granular layers of spherical and non-spherical elements. We apply a volume penalization (VP) approach formulated in the framework of an immersed boundary technique (IB) on Cartesian computational meshes. It allows modelling flows around solid objects with almost arbitrarily complex shapes and in any form of contact. The validation of the solution accuracy is performed against ANSYS Fluent simulations using body-fitted meshes and experimental literature data. It shows the capability of the IB-VP approach for the simulations of flows in complex geometries. The main research focuses on the comparison of the influence of various types of particles and their temperature on vorticity, turbulence level and pressure drop inside and behind the granular bed. In particular, we analyse how the shape of the solid particles affects the efficiency of heat transfer in different flow conditions. The obtained results reveal the occurrence of very complex flow structures (recirculation and stagnation regions) inside beds. Comparison of results also point out preferred configurations of the beds.