Effect of Superficial Air Velocity on Pressure Drop off Fluidized Chamber Experimentally and Computationally

Abstract

Forming deposits, which remains unutilized and frequently cause ecological issues, could play an important role as energy source to fulfill the energy requirements. Present investigation has been carried out in a cold bed set up to know the hydrodynamic parameters of fluidized bed at atmospheric conditions. To execute this work a round cross-sectional vessel of 0.09 m internal diameter and 1.2 m height was fabricated using 4 mm thick transparent acrylic resin tube. Sand is chosen as an inert bed with mean diameter 0.4, 0.66 and 0.93 mm. Experiments are then conducted at different fluidizing velocities various from 0.272 to 0.544 m/s with three different fuels rice husk, saw dust and groundnut shells. The impact of sand molecule size on fluidization velocity of two components bio-fuel and sand is studied and recommended to use sand molecule of size 0.4 mm for rice husk, saw dust and 0.66 mm sand particle size for ground nut shells. Group of simulations are done through ANSYS FLUENT16; keeping bed conditions is same as that of experiment. The outcomes are presented in the form of contour plots with volume fraction of sand and biomass particles. Experimental data were compared with the simulation the resultsfollowed almost the same trend.