Experimental and numerical investigation of a bubbling dense gas‐solid fluidized bed

Abstract

Eulerian models incorporating kinetic theory of granular flow (KTGF) are widely used to simulate gassolids flow. The most widely used KTGF models have been derived for dilute flows of slightly inelastic, frictionless spheres. In reality, however, granular materials are mostly frictional. Attempts to quantify the friction effect have been somewhat limited. In this work, we focus on the validation of the KTGF model for rough spheres derived by Yang et al. (2016a, b) and the corresponding BCs from Yang et al. (2016c) for frictional walls. The present TFM simulations are validated by comparing with magnetic particle tracking (MPT) experimental data and results obtained from discrete particle model (DPM) simulations of a pseudo-2D bubbling fluidized bed. Numerical results are compared with respect to particle distribution, solids velocities, and energy balance in the bed. On comparison with a simple kinetic theory derived by Jenkins and Zhang (2002), we find that present model improves the predictions for particle axial velocity and flux upon simulation of inelastic rough particles. In conclusion, the current KTGF model obtains excellent agreement with experiment and discrete particle simulation for the time-averaged bed hydrodynamics.