CFD Study of conical spouted beds containing heavy zirconia particles: Assessment of drag coefficient

CFD Study of conical spouted beds containing heavy zirconia particles: Assessment of drag coefficient

An Eulerian-Eulerian two-fluid model (TFM) in conjunction with the kinetic theory of granular flows (KTGF) was used in a full 3D computational framework. The gas-solid flow behavior of a conical spouted bed including heavy particles, zirconia, with density of 6050 kg/m3 that typically encountered in chemical vapor deposition. To reduce the computational time while maintaining the accuracy of the results, polyhedral mesh structure was utilized. Parametric study of the drag coefficient was performed. The hydrodynamics parameters including particle velocity and solid volume fraction profiles at different drag models were evaluated, and the overall behavior of particles in the bed was studied. Effect of different gas–solid exchange coefficients, namely Gidaspow et al. [1], Syamlal-O’Brien [2], Gibilaro et al. [3] and Ma-Ahmadi [4] were also studied. It is found that the drag model significantly affects the CFD results of the conical spouted beds containing heavy particles. The results showed that the Gidaspow et al. drag model lead to results that in better agreement with the experimental observations.