HEAT AND FLOW CHARACTERISTICS OF PACKED-BEDS

The state of the art is presented for the heat and flow characteristics of packed beds under conditions where radiant heat transfer may be neglected. Equations for the prediction of convective heat transfer, pressure drop, effective thermal conductivity, and wall heat transfer are recommended. New experimental data of heat transfer and pressure drop that exceed the previous Reynolds number range by one order of magnitude up to Re/epsilon = 7.7 x 10(5) are reported. Sources of errors that may occur during experimental work are discussed and partly quantified.