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An experimental study of a vertical tube gas-fluidized bed

Abstract

The goal of this experimental work was to investigate methods of measuring important fluidization properties in a vertical, cold-flow, gas-fluidized bed to gain an understanding of the fluidization characteristics of the bed materials used. Quantities such as pressure drop across the bed, mean bed height, and minimum fluidization velocity were determined using non-invasive methods and were compared to fundamental fluidized bed theories to verify proper performance of the experiment. Granular temperature near the wall, a quantity of great interest in this system, was also determined using a non-invasive technique. An Acoustic Shot Noise probe, developed by Cody et al. (1996), was used to correlate the vibrational energy at the fluidized bed wall to the average particle velocity normal to this surface. By determining the mechanical transfer function of the confining tube, it was possible to obtain an estimate for the granular temperature near the wall by performing a spectral analysis of the wall acceleration time signal. Experimentally-determined values of pressure drop, mean bed height, and minimum fluidization velocity agreed well with the values predicted from theory. Average granular temperature values also agreed well with those obtained through similar means (Cody et al., 1996). The mean bed expansion ratio and average granular temperature results were compared with those obtained from a Computational Fluid Dynamics simulation (Didwania et al., to appear). Good agreement was observed between experiment and simulation, and special attention was given to the effects of changing key parameters in the model

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