Fluid dynamics of a pressurized fluidized bed: comparison between numerical solutions from two-fluid models and experimental results

Journal article, 1999

A validation of four different two-fluid model closures was carried out to investigate the effect of gas-phase turbulence, drift velocity and three dimensionality on the fluid dynamics of a bubbling fluidized bed. At atmospheric conditions, it is verified that gas-phase turbulence has a negligible effect for the bed material and operating conditions used in the investigation, whereas the validation shows some evidence that the gas-phase turbulence has a significant contribution for higher pressures. The drift velocity shows no noticeable effect on the results at any pressure. A comparison between two- and three-dimensional calculations at atmospheric pressure shows that the three-dimensional effects appear to be considerable.