Prediction of Solid Recirculation Rate and Solid Volume Fraction in an Internally Circulating Fluidized Bed

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical study of gas and solid flow in an internally circulating fluidized bed (ICFB). Two-fluid Eulerian model with kinetic theory of granular flow option for solid phase stress closure and various drag laws were used to predict the hydrodynamic behavior of ICFB. 2D and 3D geometries were used to run the simulations. The 2D simulation results by various drag laws show that the Arastoopour and Gibilaro drag models able to predict the fluidization dynamics in terms of flow patterns, void fractions and axial velocity fields close to the experimental data. The effect of superficial gas velocity, presence of draft tube on solid hold-up distribution, solid circulation pattern, and variations in gas bypassing fraction for the 3D ICFB are investigated. The mechanism governing the solid circulation and solids concentration in an ICFB has been explained based on gas and solid dynamics obtained from the simulations. Predicted total granular temperature distributions in the draft tube and annular zones qualitatively agree with experimental data. The total granular temperature tends to increase with increasing solids concentration in the dilute region (ε < 0.1) and decreases with an increase of solids concentration in the dense region (ε > 0.1). In the dense zone, the decreasing trend in the granular temperature is mainly due to the reduction of the mean free path of the solid particles.