(125c) A Model for Two-Dimensional CFD Simulation of Pseudo-2d Gas-Solid Fluidized Beds

Rectangular fluidized beds with limited bed thickness are often used to characterize the gas-solid flow behaviors such as bubble movement, solids mixing and clustering using the non-invasive measurement techniques. Even though experimental data from such systems are very useful for model development and validation it has been reported in the literature that the two-dimensional computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations usually yield poor agreement with the experimental data for solid velocity field. It has been reported by several researchers that the 2D numerical simulation significantly over-predicts the solid velocity in pseudo-2D bubbling fluidized bed ^1-3. In this paper, a new model is proposed for 2D numerical simulations of pseudo-2D gas-solid fluidized beds.  The proposed model accounts for the important frictional effect of the front and back walls. The model has been applied to numerical simulations of different pseudo-2D experimental systems. Significant improvement in the numerical predictions has been observed which results in much better agreement with the available experimental data.