Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Fluidized Bed Hydrodynamics at Elevated Temperatures

Abstract

Fluidized bed gasifiers operate at elevated temperatures, and experimental measurements for the hydrodynamic parameters at high temperatures are difficult and time consuming, making computational fluid dynamics simulation useful for such investigation. In this study, Opensource computational fluid dynamics code, OpenFOAM, was used to investigate temperature effect on the fluidized bed hydrodynamics on a 3D fluidized bed model using Eulerian-Eulerian approach. Silica sand of particle sizes of 500, 335 and 233 m was used as the bed materials under temperatures between 25 and 400 °C. To validate the simulation model, a laboratory scale fluidized bed unit was used to conduct experiments for the same range of temperature and sand particle sizes. The results revealed that the temperature of the bed materials greatly affect fluidized bed hydrodynamics. The minimum fluidization velocity increased with the sand particle diameter but decreased with the temperature. On the other hand, the bed porosity at the minimum fluidization point increased marginally with both the temperature and the particle size of the bed materials. Further analysis showed that the expanded bed height increased with the temperature for a specific superficial velocity while the bubbles grew in size with both the air flow rates and the temperature. The numerical model results were compared with the experimental results based on minimum fluidization velocity, bed porosity and pressure drop at the minimum fluidization point. The hydrodynamic results of the numerical model were in good agreement with the experimental results.