Numerical Study of a Bubbling Fluidized Bed Using a Combined DEM-CFD Code

Marcelo José Alba¹; Flávio Clareth Colman²; Luíz Mário de Matos Jorge²; Alexandre Marconi de S. Costa²; Paulo Roberto Paraíso²

¹ Federal Technological University of Paraná; ² State University of Maringá

doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-1225

Resumo

Fluidized beds are used in industries in the separation, mixing, drying and combustion operations. This work analyzed the behavior of a fluidized bed with the open-source MFIX-DEM code developed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL-USA). For the code, the gas and solid phases are treated in an Eulerian-Lagrangian framework. For the gas-phase, continuity and momentum conservation equations was solved. For the particles, or the solid-phase, was used the Discrete Element Method (DEM), which describes the contact and collisions phenomenon's from the spring-dashpot-friction concepts, by means of an explicit numerical approach. A two-dimensional grid with gas injection was used through a distributor at the bottom of the bed. The granular material analyzed was the soybeans. The gas velocity was varied to determine the influence of pressure drop within the bed. The results obtained by the different drag relationships were compared with the fluidization curves from the experimental data.

Palavras-chave: fluidized bed; soybean; MFIX-DEM