Teaching our Engineers: A Perspective on the Needs in Fluidization/Fluid Bed Education

Fluidized solids phenomena are ubiquitous across nearly all process industries, yet in the author’s experience, most engineers do not understand the fundamentals associated with the technology. It is important to differentiate between the phenomenon of fluidization and fluid bed processes. The former are found in all manner of processes ranging from hopper design to pneumatic conveying to agglomeration and many more. Engineers need to understand the connection between these processes and fluidization fundamentals. On the other hand, a more limited set of engineers will be actively engaged in design and operation of fluid bed processes; they will require a deeper knowledge of both fluidization fundamentals and fluid bed processes. Hence, the educational needs will differ based on the audience. At a minimum, undergraduate students should be exposed to concepts such as the Geldart classification, the existence of bubbles, pressure drop in fluid beds, settlement of solids, minimum fluidization, etc. In the context of today’s already full undergraduate curricula, the challenge of squeezing in more material is always a conundrum. The concepts outlined above would be a good two-lecture addition to an undergraduate fluid mechanics class. For those institutions with an introductory particle technology class, the fluidization concepts could be expanded to address bubble growth, heat transfer, mass transfer, entrainment/elutriation/TDH, etc. Lastly, deep expertise could be provided in a graduate course where concepts such as reaction engineering, transport beds, computer aided solids flow modeling, etc. are presented. But we need to start with the undergraduates and hopefully excite them about fluidized solids!