An investigation on the mixing hydrodynamics of a gas-solid fluidized bed
Abstract
In previous decades, the experimental and numerical studies of multiphase flows have remarkably increased especially gas-solid flows. Research of this type has abundant applications in energy, chemical processes, among others. Moreover, common applications include fluid catalytic cracking for petroleum refineries, fluidized bed reactors (type of chemical reactors), interface modification, such as applying a coating onto solid items, and an important technology breakthrough in coal gasification. The work presented on this thesis concentrates on the investigation of gas-solid flows utilizing Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods. The gas-solid flows studies performed on this investigation assumed the solid phase as a continuum with averaged properties and treated the gas-solid flow as constituting of interpenetrating continua. The fluid flow computation has been achieved using two different solvers. One of them is FLUENT, a general-purpose CFD code based on the finite volume method on a collocated grid. FLUENT technology offers a wide array of physical models that can be applied to a wide array of industries. The other solver is MFIX (Multiphase Flow with Interphase eXchanges), a solver developed at the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) for multiphase flows; MFIX is a general-purpose hydrodynamic model that describes chemical reactions and heat transfer in dense or dilute fluid-solids flows, which are flows that typically occur in energy conversion and chemical processing reactors. MFIX calculations give detailed information on pressure, temperature, composition, and velocity distributions.
Subject Area
Mechanical engineering
Recommended Citation
Ruvalcaba, Mario A, "An investigation on the mixing hydrodynamics of a gas-solid fluidized bed" (2009). ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. AAI1473889.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI1473889