CFD Analysis of Hydrodynamic Studies of a Bubbling Fluidized Bed

Fluidization velocity is one of the significant parameter to characterize the hydrodynamic studies of fluidized bed as it determines different flow regimes. Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations are carried for a cylindrical bubbling fluidized bed with a static bed height of 1m with 0.150m diameter of gasification chamber. The parameter investigated is fluidization velocity in range of 0.05m/s to 0.7m/s. Sand with density 2600kg/m3 and with a constant particle diameter of sand 385μm is employed for all the simulations. Simulations are conducted utilizing with the commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics software, ANSYS-FLUENT. The bubbling flow regime is appeared above the air inlet velocity of 0.2m/s. Bubbling character is increased with increase in inlet air velocities indicated by asymmetrical fluctuations of volume fractions in radial directions at different bed heights