Numerical simulation of the flow field in double cone-diversion gas distributor

Double cone intake distributor, a new type of symmetric intake device, was designed and developed for large-scale reactor. In order to evaluate the proposed device, FLUENT software was used to simulate the flow fields of the new type distributor with different structural parameters. In this work, the κ-Ε turbulent model was adopted to investigate the effect of the size and location of the drained cells on the outside cone. Then, for a given bed dimension, the optimal drained cell size and location on the outside cone were obtained, using them the demand of forming a well pressure distribution along the outside surface of the inside cone of the distributor can be matched. Additionally, the effects of the aperture ratio on the inside cone and the change of the cone angle on the flow distribution were also studied via simulating the flow field distributions of the fluidized bed using various distributors with inside cones having different aperture ratios and cone angles. The results show that the proposed new type device has better flow distribution and lower pressure drop when the aperture ratio of the inside cone is 0.89% and the cone angle is 60. The measuring results of the experiments agree well with those obtained by simulation, and it indicates that the numerical simulation can forecast the flow field well.