This paper presents experimental and computational studies on the flow behavior of a gas-solid fluidized bed with disparately sized binary particle mixtures. The mixing/segregation behavior and segregation efficiency of the small and large particles are investigated experimentally. Particle composition and operating conditions that influence the fluidization behavior of mixing/segregation are examined. Based on the granular kinetics theory, a multi-fluid CFD model has been developed and verified against the experimental results. The simulation results are in reasonable agreement with experimental data. The results showed that the smaller particles are found near the bed surface while the larger particles tend to settle down to the bed bottom in turbulent fluidized bed. However, complete segregation of the binary particles does not occur in the gas velocity range of 0.695-0.904 m/s. Segregation efficiency increases with increasing gas velocity and mean residence time of the binary particles, but decreases with increasing the small particle concentration. The calculated results also show that the small particles move downward in the wall region and upward in the core. Due to the effect of large particles on the movement of small particles, the small particles present a more turbulent velocity profile in the dense phase than that in the dilute phase.
This paper examines the suitability of various drag models for predicting the hydrodynamics of the turbulent fluidization of FCC particles on the Fluent V6.2 platform. The drag models included those of Syamlal-O＇Brien, Gidaspow, modified Syamlal-O＇Brien, and McKeen. Comparison between experimental data and simulated results showed that the Syamlal-O＇Brien, Gidaspow, and modified Syamlal-O＇Brien drag models highly overestimated gas-solid momentum exchange and could not predict the formation of dense phase in the fiuidized bed, while the McKeen drag model could not capture the dilute charac- teristics due to underestimation of drag force. The standard Gidaspow drag model was then modified by adopting the effective particle cluster diameter to account for particle clusters, which was, however, proved inapplicable for FCC particle turbulent fluidization. A four-zone drag model （dense phase, sub- dense phase, sub-dilute phase and dilute phase） was finally proposed to calculate the gas-solid exchange coefficient in the turbulent fluidization of FCC particles, and was validated by satisfactory agreement between prediction and experiment.
Peng Li Xingying Lan Chunming Xu Gang Wang Chunxi Lu Jinsen Gao
