(110e) Superdem-CFD: Open Source Parallel Solver for Non-Spherical Particle-Fluid Fluidization Systems

Understanding the fluidization behavior of non-spherical particles is important for fluidized bed design and scale-up. In this study, a SuperDEM-CFD coupled solver in open-source MFiX for non-spherical particle fluidization systems was developed and validated. The non-spherical particle was modeled using a superquadric method, most of the shapes can be easily represented by only varying five parameters. A new interpolation method (called DPVM-Satellites) for non-spherical particles was developed to distribute the particle volume into the neighboring fluid cells. A general algorithm to calculate the projected area perpendicular to the flow was developed. Several non-spherical drag models that consider both particle orientation and fluid voidage effects were compared. The solver was validated by comparing the simulation results with various fluidization experiments of non-spherical particles, including cylinder, elongated cylinder, cubic, etc. The model can correctly simulate the pressure drop, particle height distribution, particle orientation distribution for different particle shapes. Besides, large-scale systems with millions of non-spherical particles were parallel simulated to demonstrate the ability of the solver for industrial-relevant flows simulation.