Mixing and segregation in a bidisperse gas–solid fluidised bed: a numerical and experimental study

In many industrial applications of dense gas–solid fluidised beds, mixing and segregation phenomena play a very important role. The extent of mixing and segregation is strongly influenced by the bubble characteristics. Therefore, the extent of mixing and segregation, induced by a single bubble injected in a monodisperse and bidisperse fluidised bed at incipient fluidisation conditions and in freely bubbling fluidised beds has been studied both with well-defined experiments and with a 3D Euler–Lagrangian model. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) was successfully applied to obtain the ensemble averaged particle velocity profile in the vicinity of the bubble in dense gas–solid fluidised systems.

The bubble size of a single injected bubble in a fluidised bed at minimum fluidisation conditions calculated with a 3D discrete particle model (DPM) depended strongly on the selected gas-particle drag model. The widely used Ergun equation combined with the Wen and Yu Powder Technol. 98 (1998) 38; Chem. Eng. Sci. 47 (1992) 1913] relations overpredicted the bubble size due to an overprediction of the drag force. The DPM with the drag model proposed by Koch and Hill Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 33 (2001) 619], based on Lattice–Boltzmann simulations, gave much better agreement with the experimental findings.

The segregation rates in a bidisperse freely bubbling fluidised bed predicted by the DPM agreed very well with the experimentally measured segregation rates by Goldschmidt M.J.V. Goldschmidt, Hydrodynamic modelling of fluidised bed spray granulation, PhD thesis, Twente University, 2001].