Role of inter-particle collision on solids acceleration in riser

Collision among particles plays a significant role in governing the structure of gas-solids flow in a riser,especially in the dense and acceleration region.The inter-particle collision is the major cause not only for the kinetic energy dissipation(in terms of additional pressure drop beyond the solids hold-up) but also for the control of solids acceleration(in terms of a balancing force to prevent a free acceleration of solids).A neglect of the balancing force of inter-particle collision against the hydrodynamic force in the solids momentum equation would simply overestimate the solids acceleration or concentration while underestimate the axial gradient of pressure along the riser by a large margin,typically by up to two orders of magnitude.This paper aims to illustrate the importance of the collision on the characteristic of the gas-solids riser flow.Our analysis shows that the collision force should be of the same order of magnitude as that of the drag force in the dense and acceleration region,which can be far beyond that of gravitational force on solids.A simple formulation of the collision force is therefore proposed to bear a similar format of drag force,with regard to the dependence upon local solids properties.With the inclusion of the proposed correlation of collision force in the solids momentum equation,our model would be able to yield reasonable phase distributions of gas-solid flows,which can be validated,in a bulk range,against available measurements of solids volume fraction and axial gradient of pressure.