Tutorial Modeling Uniform Fluidization in 2D Fluidized Bed
Tutorial Modeling Uniform Fluidization in 2D Fluidized Bed
Tutorial Modeling Uniform Fluidization in 2D Fluidized Bed
Introduction
The purpose of this tutorial is to study the hydrodynamics and bubble formation in a
fluidized bed over a period of time. It also demonstrates how to customize a drag law for
granular gas-solid flow. The default drag law in FLUENT is the Syamlal-O’Brien drag law.
This law works for a large variety of problems, but has to be tuned properly for predicting
the minimum fluidization conditions accurately.
This tutorial demonstrates how to do the following:
• Use the Eularian models to predict the pressure drop in an uniformly fluidized bed.
Prerequisites
This tutorial assumes that you are familiar with the FLUENT interface, and have a good
understanding of basic setup and solution procedures. This tutorial will not cover the
mechanics of using the Eularian models. It will focus on the application of these models.
If you have not used these models before FLUENT 6.3 Tutorial Guide will provide you with
the necessary experience.
Problem Description
The prediction of pressure drop in an uniformly fluidized bed is a problem of long standing
interest in the process industry. The Eulerian models in FLUENT provide an important
modeling tool for studying dense phase particulate flow involving complex inter-phase mo-
mentum transfer.
Despite rigorous mathematical modeling of the associated physics, the drag laws used in
the model continue to be semi-empirical in nature. Therefore, it is crucial to use a drag law
that correctly predicts the incipient or minimum fluidization conditions where the bed of
particles is essentially in a state of suspension as a result of the balance between interfacial
drag and body forces.
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Modeling Uniform Fluidization in 2D Fluidized Bed
with A = αl4.14 and B = 0.8αl1.28 for αl ≤ 0.85 and with B = αl2.65 for αl > 0.85
The default constants of 0.8 and 2.65 predict a minimum fluidization of 21 cm/s. The
experimentally observed minimum fluidization for this particular case is 8 cm/s. Therefore,
by changing the constants we can tune the drag law to predict minimum fluidization at
8 cm/s. After some mathematical manipulation, these constansts come out to be 0.281632
and 9.07696 respectively. Therefore, these values have to be used to predict the correct bed
behavior and are passed to the code through user-defined functions.
The problem considered is a 1m x 0.15m fluidized bed as shown in Figure 1. The inlet air
enters in at 0.25 m/s and the top is modeled as a pressure outlet. The bed is packed with
granular solids at 0.55 volume fraction (close to packing).
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Preparation
Note: All entries in setting up this case are in SI units, unless otherwise specified.
Step 1: Grid
Step 2: Models
1. Select Pressure Based solver with 2D space and Unsteady time condition.
Define −→ Models −→Solver...
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Modeling Uniform Fluidization in 2D Fluidized Bed
Step 3: Materials
Define −→Materials...
1. Click the Add... button in the Source Files section to open the Select File dialog.
2. Select the file bp drag.c.
3. Enter lib drag for Library Name.
4. Click Build.
A Warning dialog box will appear, warning you to make sure that the UDF source files
are in the same folder that contains the case and data files. Click OK to close the
Warning dialog box.
You can view the compilation history in the ‘log’ file that is saved in your working
folder.
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Step 5: Phases
Define −→Phases...
1. Select phase-1 from the Phase selection list and click the Set... button to open the
Primary Phase panel.
(a) Select air from the Phase Material drop-down list.
(b) Enter gas for Name.
(c) Click OK to close the Primary Phase panel.
2. Select phase-2 from the Phase selection list and click the Set... button to open the
Secondary Phase panel.
(a) Select solids from the Phase Material drop-down list.
(b) Enter solid for Name and enable Granular.
(c) Enter 0.0003 m for Diameter, and select syamlal-obrien from the Granular Viscosity
drop-down list.
(d) Retain the default values for the other parameters.
(e) Click OK to close the Secondary Phase panel.
Check the column numbers where the two phases appear in the Phase Interaction panel.
In this case solid and gas appear in the first and second columns respectively. These
columns are used to specify the phase indices in the argument list for the UDF.
1. Enable Gravity and enter -9.81 m/s2 for Gravitational Acceleration in the Y direction.
2. Enable Specified Operating Density, and enter 1.2 kg/m3 for Operating Density.
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Modeling Uniform Fluidization in 2D Fluidized Bed
1. Select vinlet from the Zone selection list, and gas from the Phase drop-down list.
3. Select solid from the Phase drop-down list and click the Set... button to open the
Velocity Inlet panel.
(a) Click the Multiphase tab and enter 0 for Volume Fraction.
(b) Click OK to close the Velocity Inlet panel.
Step 8: Solution
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Modeling Uniform Fluidization in 2D Fluidized Bed
5. Enable autosaving of the data files for every 100 time steps.
File −→ Write −→Autosave...
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Modeling Uniform Fluidization in 2D Fluidized Bed
9. Start the calculation by requesting 1400 iterations and set the Time Step Size to
0.001 sec.
Solve −→Iterate...
Step 9: Postprocessing
1. Display contours of volume fraction for solid at 0.2 sec (Figure 3), 0.9 sec (Figure 4),
and 1.4 sec (Figure 5).
Display −→Contours...
2. View the animation for the fluidization process using the .tiff files and the command,
animate *.tiff
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Modeling Uniform Fluidization in 2D Fluidized Bed
Results
Typically, the constants set to 0.8 and 2.65 in the default drag law have to be modified to
balance the interfacial drag with the weight of the bed at minimum fluidization. If this is
not done, the correct bubbling pattern will not be predicted, leading to incorrect predictions
of pressure drop which is the most important objective of such simulations.
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