CFD Simulation of Different Flow Regimes of the Spout Fluidized Bed with Draft Plates

Abstract

Spout fluidized bed has shown promising for gas-solid contact operations with and without chemical reactions, such as drying, coating, granulation, gasification, pyrolysis, etc. This is because these beds combine features from both spouted and fluidized beds. The other point is the ability to treat chemical transformations involving both heat and mass transfer in combination with particles of various sizes. Therefore, it is extremely important the knowledge of fluid dynamic of the bed, mainly for scale-up projects, which makes computer simulation an essential tool. Researches using the Computation Fluid Dynamics (CFD) proved to be very effective in predicting of particles dynamic in this type of bed. In Computation Fluid Dynamics, the two phases are treated as interpenetration continuous, and these phases are described by equations of conservation of mass, momentum and energy. The goal of the present work was to simulate using CFD experimental fluid dynamics data of a spout fluidized bed. Eight distinct flow regimes were identified which showed up in good agreement with the regime map presented in literature. The results showed that the technique was efficient for the simulation of the hydrodynamic of the bed presented.