Particles mixing induced by bubbles in a gas‐solid fluidized bed

The effect of bubble injection characteristics on the mixing behavior of a gas‐solid fluidized bed is investigated using a discrete particle model. The effect of different parameters including gas injection time, velocity, and mode are studied. Simulation results show that injecting gas at a constant gas flow rate in the form of small bubbles results in a better overall particle mixing. It was also found that the injection velocities have limited effect on particle mixing behavior for the same total gas volume injected into the bed. Moreover, the mixing index (MI) of continuous gas jet bubbling regime is compared with the MI obtained in uniform gas injection regime and the results revealed that the MI of continuous jet bubbling regime has a larger value than that of uniform gas injection regime at the fixed total gas flow rate. In both regimes, z‐direction MI is larger than x‐direction index. The differences between two direction indices are more noticeable in continuous jet bubbling in comparison with the uniform gas injection regime. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 62: 1430–1438, 2016