(140a) Study of Hydrodynamic Behavior in a Shallow Rectangular Spouted Bed with Ascending Gas Flow Using Bed Pressure Signals and Image Analysis

The hydrodynamic characteristics of the spouted bed play an important role in the whole bed’s practical performance. The Thermal Science Team in U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has performed many experimental study based on the spouted bed reactors design. As a further investigation, this work combines bed pressure signals and image processing methods to study the hydrodynamic behavior in a 30.2 mm × 101.6 mm rectangular spouted bed for four different kinds of particles. The rectangular configuration is chosen due to its particular advantage in heat transfer and reaction control especially in the reactor development including multiple combustion and reaction chambers. In addition, considering the design and scaling up of the spouted bed, the ascending air flow process, which is thought to be more close to the actual industrial conditions, is applied in the experiments. First, the internal and the external spouting velocities are determined from the bed pressure drop and the bed expansion ratio curves, respectively. Then, the relationship between the internal and external spouting velocities for the four kinds of particles are obtained. At last, the correlation to predict the external spouting velocity is discussed. The present work aims to perform a fully experimental investigation on the hydrodynamic characteristics in a rectangular spouted bed so as to provide more data and guidance for the following reactor design and development.