CFD Modelling of a Fluidized Bed Gasifier; Effects of Drag Model and Bed Heights

Abstract

One of the unresolved issues in using the gasifier is the inability to determine the occurrence of the transition regime of fluidized bed. In modeling gas-solid phase, drag force is one of the main mechanisms for inter-phase momentum transfer. Thus, a simulation of fluidized bed was developed to study the effect of using various drag models over different bed height of H/D ratio such as 0.5, 1 and 2. A two dimensional model using Eulerian-Granular Multiphase Model (EGM) based on two fluid models have been used to simulate hydrodynamics of a bubbling fluidized beds. Gas-solid interactions are modeled via inter-phase of a drag model. The drag correlations of Gidaspow, Wen Yu, Syamlal-O'Brien, Hill Koch Ladd (HKL) and Representative Unit Cell (RUC) were implemented to simulate the interaction between phases. From this study, we found that different H/D ratio such as 0.5, 1 and 2 yields different volume fraction as increasing bed height slows kinetic transport of particle sand to the upper side of the bed. Besides that, different H/D ratio also resulted in different velocity vector. The results also show that Wen Yu and Syamlal-O'Brien are sufficient enough in detecting the change from one regime to another regardless of the bed height.