Experimental characterization and CFD simulation of gas maldistribution in turbulent fluidization of Group A particles

The study presented hereby investigates experimentally and with CFD simulations the gas distribution effect on the hydrodynamic of a Geldart Group A turbulent fluidized bed. Experiments were carried out on a cold flow fluidized bed column with an even and uneven gas distribution. Local solid volume fraction profiles were measured using optical probes at different bed heights and along two radial di-rections. Optical probe measurements allow catching a clear hydrodynamic difference between both even and uneven gas distributions. These results were then used to assess CFD simulations with the code BarracudaTM (MP-PIC approach). It is noteworthy that the choice of drag correlation and boundary conditions strongly influences the agreement between the experimental and CFD results. Once the correct parameters are chosen, CFD simulations captured the effect of gas distribution changes.(c) 2023 Chinese Society of Particuology and Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.