Paste Residence Time in a Spouted Bed Dryer. II: Effect of Spout Operational Conditions

Residence time distributions for an aqueous solution of 10% sodium chloride in a spouted bed dryer of inert particles were determined using the stimulus-response technique. Glass and polyethylene beads with diameters 2.6 and 3.4 mm were used as inert bodies in a cylindrical column of 14.0 cm diameter and 60° conical base. The effects of inert bodies load, air, and paste flow rates on the mean residence times and RTD were determined following 2³ factorial designs. The RTD could be correlated to the perfect mixing cell model with R² varying from 0.8684 to 0.9815. The mean residence times in CSBD varied from 10.8 to 13.9 and 10.7 to 13.3 min for glass and polyethylene beads, respectively. For both inert particles, mean residence times increased with bed height and decreased with paste feed rates. Also, terms of interaction among the factors were significant in some cases, showing a complex behavior of paste residence times. Equations obtained by response surface regression could predict mean residence times on glass and polyethylene beads with deviations lower than ±10%.     

β放射性气体浓度计的新分度方法

本文介绍β放射性气体浓度计的一种新的分度方法——泄漏元件排气法。其特点是一只元件可分度放射性气体浓度计的许多读出数(甚至是几个量程),操作方便。     

Effect of Channel Changes in the St. Clair River During the Present Century

Periodic man-made changes in the outlet of Lake Huron through the St. Clair River date back to the middle of the last century. These artificial channel changes have been well documented during the present century. They consist of dredging for commercial gravel removal in the upper river during 1908–25 and uncompensated navigation improvements for the 7.6-m (25-ft) and 8.2-m (27-ft) projects completed in 1933 and 1962, respectively. The total effect of these changes on the levels of Lakes Michigan and Huron (hydraulically one lake) and on the upper St. Clair River profile was determined with dynamic flow models. The ultimate effect of the above dredging was a permanent lowering of the Lake Michigan-Huron levels 0.27 m (0.89 ft), which represents a tremendous loss of freshwater resource [32 km³ (7.7 mi³)].     

Yeast exo-β-glucanases can be used as efficient and readily detectable reporter genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Yeast exo-1,3-β-glucanases are secretable proteins whose function is basically trophic and may also be involved in cell wall glucan hydrolytic processes. Since fluorescein di(β-D -glucopyranoside) is a fluorogenic substrate detectable and quantifiable by flow cytometry, it was used for testing the ability of the EXG1 gene product of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and its homologous gene in Candida albicans to function as reporter genes. These open reading frames were coupled to different promoters in multicopy plasmids, and exoglucanase activity quantified at flow cytometry. Exoglucanases were found to be useful tools for the study of promoter regions in S. cerevisiae. This technique has the advantage over other reporter gene systems—such as β-galactosidase fusions—that it does not require permeabilization of yeast cells and therefore it allows the recovery of viable cells—by sorting—after flow cytometry analysis.     

Characterization of the flow behaviour of sausage emulsions with a simple tube viscometer

A specially designed tube viscometer was used to measure apparent viscosity during flow of Bologna type sausage emulsions moving through a pipe. Emulsions varied in fat content (from 21.8 to 44.3%) and in moisture/protein ratio (from 3.7 to 5.6), and the effects of added sodium chloride, sodium diphosphate, starch and blood plasma were investigated in a 36% fat, 3.7 moisture/protein emulsion.
The shear stresses determined as a function of shear rate were fitted by a power law. Yield stress of the emulsions was negligible relative to the applied stress. However, inspection of the flow profiles indicated that considerable slip of the sausage emulsion occurred at the pipe wall. Both emulsion flow and slip contribute to overall flow behaviour, so a kind of effective viscosity is determined. Intrinsic rheological properties and wall slip will both be affected by the composition of the sausage emulsion.     

Discrete Modeling and Suggested Measurement of Heat Transfer in Gas-Solids Flows

This article presents a two-dimensional transient model for gas-solids flow and heat transfer through pipes using the coupled Computational Fluid Dynamics and Discrete Element Method approach. Numerical simulations have been conducted to examine the modification of fluid thermal structure due to the presence of particles in a pneumatic transport pipeline. Modeled results have demonstrated the key role of transversal motion of rebounding particles in the pipe cross section in altering fluid temperature. Further implementation of this modeling technique in air-drying processes is discussed and possible experimental methods for the measurement of in situ particle and fluid motion and temperature profile are cited.     

Influence of process variables on the drying of potato slices

Investigation of the effects of varying air velocity, slice thickness, and pre-treatment with sodium chloride solutions and surface active agents on drying potato slices indicated that the drying occurred entirely in the falling rate period and was controlled by the mechanism of liquid diffusion. The rate of drying, and therefore the diffusion coefficients, increased with the addition of sodium chloride and surface active agents. Diffusion coefficients were also influenced by air velocity and slice thickness, suggesting that the rate of drying of potato slices is controlled by a combination of internal and external resistances.     

水平管气力输送数值模拟

本文采用粒子追踪理论对水平管中粒子流动状态进行了数值模拟.文中提出了一种新的粒子碰撞模型,并忽略粒子的旋转和扬力,仅考虑气流阻力和重力对粒子的影响,在输送量为9.13×10~3kg/s,混合比约0.3的条件下,通过数值计算得知:由于粒子间的碰撞,使得异径粒子的速度趋向平均化;粒子间的碰撞是粒子悬浮的原因之一;粒子的浓度沿管轴向是随时间而发生变化的.     

PROGRESS IN THE MODELLING OF AIR FLOW PATTERNS IN TIMBER KILNS

Progress in modelling air flow patterns in timber kilns using Computational Fluid Dynamics is reviewed in this work. These simulations are intended to predict the distribution of the flow in the fillet spaces between boards in a hydraulic model of a timber kiln. Here, the flow regime between the boards is transitional between laminar and turbulent flow, with Reynolds numbers of the order of 5000. Running the simulation as a transient calculation has shown few problems with convergence issues, reaching a mass residual of 0.2% of the total inflow after 40-100 iterations per time step for time steps of 0.01 s. Grid sensitivity studies have shown that non-uniform grids are necessary because of the sudden changes in flow cross section, and the flow simulations are insensitive to grid refinement for non-uniform grids with more than 300,000 cells. The best agreement between the experimentally-measured flow distributions between fillet spaces and those predicted by the simulation have been achieved for (effective) bulk viscosities between the laminar viscosity for water and ten times that value. This change in viscosity is not very large (less than an order of magnitude), given that effective turbulent viscosities are typically several orders of magnitude greater than laminar ones. This result is consistent with the transitional flows here.     

Homogenization of hardness distribution and distortion in high pressure gas quenching

Quenching with gases rather than oil or other liquid media has the advantages of reducing the risks concerning health and environment, while simultaneously homogenizing the quenching results and minimizing distortion due to a wide range of possible process parameter variations and the pure convective heat transfer. In this contribution, a coupled solution for increasing homogenization of quenching results within high pressure gas quenching will be presented. In the first stage, an experimental test facility was set up for flow investigations and in the second stage a numerical simulation model was generated. The numerical and experimental results of the flow through the chamber were compared for several boundary conditions. Finally, after complete verification of the simulation, the model may be used to assist in parameter variation for optimization of homogeneous high pressure gas quenching.