Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Process Systems Engineering (PSE ASIA)

25 - 27 June 2013, Kuala Lumpur.

Computational Fluid Dynamic and Population
Balance Modeling of Industrial Fluidized Bed
Polymerization Reactor

V. Akbari, T. N. G. Borhani, H. Kazemi, M. K. A Hamid

Process System Engineering Center (PROSPECT), Faculty of Chemical Engineering,
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, UTM Skudai, 81310 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
Abstract
This work aims at developing a transient computational fluid dynamic (CFD) coupled
with population balance (CFD-PBM) model for investigating the grid sensitivity, on one
hand and predicting the flow behaviour, on the other hand in the industrial linear low
density polyethylene (LLDPE) gas-solid fluidized bed reactor. The Eulerian-Eulerian
model coupled with the DQMOM (direct quadrature method of moment) is used to
describe flow behaviour and the particle size distribution. The pressure drop and bed
height agree well with those obtained from industrial reactor. The results reveal that the
various grid number effects on the flow behaviour. Smaller grid size lead to increase
pressure drop and decrease the bed height. The model predicts the Well-Mixing along
the fluidized bed reactor.

Keywords: Gas-Solid Fluidized Bed Reactor; Euler-Euler Model; Population Balance.
1. Introduction
Low pressure gas-phase polymerization is widely used for polymerization of olefin in
fluidized bed reactors. Because of the complex flow behaviour that is characteristic of
poly-disperse gas-solid systems (e.g., mixing/segregation, aggregation, breakage and
growth of the particles), designing and scaling-up of these systems is still a challenging
task (Detamore et al., 2001; Yan et al., 2012).

A population balance is a powerful tool to investigate the impact of particle size
distribution (PSD) on the hydrodynamics of the fluidized bed reactors, particularly
when coupled with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. Fan and co-workers
(Fan, 2004) suggested CFD-PBM coupled model to simulate polydisperse gas-solid
fluidized bed reactors. Recently, The QMOM and DQMOM were widely used to solve
the PBE, and they were implemented in a Eulerian-Eulerian model to simulate
polydisperse gas-solid FB (Ahmadzadeh et al., 2008; Yan, et al., 2012).

The objective of this work is to test and validate a Eulerian-Eulerian model to solve gas-
solid flow based on the Direct Quadrature Method of Moments (DQMOM) approach.
The effect of grid sensitivity and flow field are simulated.
2. Model Description
2.1 Eulerian-Eulerian CFD model
746 Akbari et al.
The multi-fluid continuum model assumes that different phases behave as
interpenetration continuum and the instantaneous variables are the average over the
region that is large compared to a particle space but much smaller than the flow domain.
Each particulate phase is characterized by the unique diameter, density and other
features. The continuity and momentum equations for gas and solid phases are:

(1)

(2)

(3)

Where

is the

Phase (solid and gas) stress-strain tensor,

is an
interaction between phases and is the pressure that shared by all phases.

is the
momentum exchange coefficient between phases,

and is the gravity vector.

(4)

and

are the shear and bulk viscosity of phase .

The Eulerian-Eulerian two-fluid model requires closure equations to describe the
rheology of the solid phase. Due to collisions between particles in dense gas-solid
systems, the concepts from gas kinetic theory can be employed to describe the motion
of particles. The geometry used in this work, representing an operational British
Petroleum (BP) reactor, is cylindrical with a bulb at the top, about 30m height and 5m
wide as shown in Figure 2. The detailed setting in the software (Ansys Fluent 14) are
listed in Table 1, 2 and 3.

2.2 The population balance model and DQMOM
The PBE is a balance equation for the population of the particles and it can be derived
in the same way, as many other balance or continuity equations in the continuum
mechanics are derived. A general form of PBE can be expressed as:

(5)

The first term on the left hand is the transient term, second term is the convective term
and the third term is growth term. And the terms on the right hand are the source term
describing aggregation and breakage, respectively. is the number density
function with particle diameter (L) as the internal coordinate. For simplicity, the growth,
aggregation and breakage phenomena were not considered.
The advantage of DQMOM is that it is directly applicable to the population balance
equation with more than one internal coordinate. This method has been described
Computational Fluid Dynamic and Population Balance Modeling of Industrial Fluidized Bed
Polymerization Reactor 747
extensively by some researchers (Fan, et al., 2004).This discussion is limited here to a
brief review of the equations.

DQMOM approach also uses number density function and quadrature
approximation, and each node (different solid phase) represents the solid phase
properties. So in the Eulerian-Eulerian multi-fluid model each solid phase has its own
momentum balance.

(6)

Where

is the weight of the delta function centered on the character length

Table 2. Boundary condition and model parameters
Description Values
Granular viscosity Gidaspow (Chen et al., 2011)
Granular bulk viscosity Lun et al(Chen, et al., 2011)
Frictional viscosity Schaeffer(Chen, et al., 2011)
Restitution coefficient 0.8
Granular temperature Algebric
Diffusion coefficient Syamlal(Chen, et al., 2011)
Drag law Gidaspow (Chen, et al., 2011)
Inlet boundary condition Velocity inlet
Outlet boundary condition
Wall boundary condition
Pressure outlet
No slip for gas, free slip for
solid phase
Initial bed height (m) 10
Initial solid volume fraction 0.5
Operating pressure (Bar) 24
Time step (s) 0.01
Superficial gas velocity (m/s) 0.5

Table 1. Physical properties of gas and solid phases and operation conditions.

800-1100m 850 20 1.2

3. Simulation condition and CFD modeling strategy
In order to investigate the potentials and limitations of the CFD modeling, the CFD-
PBM with the Eulerian-Eulerian approach was used to study the PSD in this work. The
DQMOM was used to take into account the PSD, whereas the KTGF was employed to
close momentum balance equation for the solid phase. The phase coupled SIMPLE
algorithm was used to couple pressure and velocity. In addition, Workbench Ansys 14
was used to generate the 2D geometry and grids .The comparison was made with the
same initial PSD and thus the initial conditions have been calculated by using the same
set of moments (see Table 2 and 3).


748 Akbari et al.
Table 3. The ith moments of number density function
Moment value
m
0
9.50E+08
m
1
7.50E-04
m
2
1.14E-06
m
3
1.74E-09
m
4
2.68E-12
m
5
4.14E-15
m
6
6.41E-18

4. Results and Discussion
Grid sensitivity was carried out initially to match the industrial operation condition, and
the result indicated that a total amount of 52007 nodes were adequate to predict the
hydrodynamic in the FBR (see Figure1 and Table 4) .Figure 1a shows that all the
fluidization bed height at three different nodes reached to a quasi-steady condition at
70s. By increasing the grid numbers, bed height decrease whereas the pressure drop
increases as reported by(Chalermsinsuwan, 2011).From the Figure 1 and Table 4, the
mesh used for reference case seems to give precise enough results for a reasonable
computing time.

Table 4. Grid Analysis
Nodes
Pressure
Drop
Bed
height
%pressure drop
error
%bed height
error
Case1 21464 0.59943 21.55 1.95 7.2
Case2 52007 0.59616 20.15 0.36 0.75
Case3 102343 0.6168 19.5 4.89 2.5

As it was done in the reference case (Case 2), the comparison with industrial data can
perform for pressure drop and bed height which is quite close to the CFD values. On the
other hand, the nodes affect the global behavior of the flow. Figure 2 gives the solid
volume fraction distribution at different times . According to Figure 2, one knows that
the fluidization bed heights increases with the fluidization phenomena. During the start-
up of fluidization, the large particle vorticity in the bottom corners acts as a source of
voidage.

In polydisperse systems small particles tend to fill the coarse interparticle voids that this
feature lead to more homogeneous mixing and reduce the void fraction along the bed
(Figure 2). With the exception of two regions, one located above the gas distributor due
to influence of gas inlet and the other at the top of the bed that fine and coarse particle is
normally found (see Figure 4). Solid volume fraction through the bed height is
constantly close the average value (Formisani, 2001). At an intermediate height in the
bed, the upward solid ow from the bottom section encountered the downward ow
from the top section of the bed in the wall region. Both solid ows merged and the
particle velocity changed towards the bed centre (h=15m). This indicates that in the
intermediate height in the bed (10-15 m), the bubbles moved towards the bed centre and
the upward velocity of solids in the centre increased (Figure 3).
Computational Fluid Dynamic and Population Balance Modeling of Industrial Fluidized Bed
Polymerization Reactor 749
a)


b)

Figure 1. Grid sensitivity analysis (a) pressure drop vs.t, (b) bed height vs. time.


5s 20s 40s 60s 100s
Figure 2. The counters of solid volume fraction at different times


10
12
14
16
18
20
22
0 20 40 60 80 100
B
e
d

H
e
i
g
h
t

(
m
)

Time (s)
Nodes= 52007 Nodes=21464
Nodes=102343 Normal bed height
0.3
0.5
0.7
0.9
0 20 40 60 80 100
p
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

d
r
o
p

(
b
a
r
)

Time (s)
Nodes= 52007 Nodes= 21464 Nodes= 102343
min pressure drop max pressure drop
750 Akbari et al.

Figure3. Vector of particle velocity Figure 4. Radial particle velocity
at different heights, at t=100 s at different heights, t=100 s

5. Conclusion
A two-dimensional CFD-PBM model incorporating the kinetic theory of granular flow
was developed to validate the hydrodynamic of gas-solid flow in the LLDPE industrial
fluidized bed reactor. A comprehensive CFD-PBM model evaluation by comparing
industrial operation condition was investigated for various grid sensitivity. It was found
that fine mesh lead to increase the pressure drop and reduce the bed height. The
predicted pressure drop and bed height were good agreement with the industrial data.
The model also predicts the flow behaviour and particle velocity along the fluidized bed
reactor. In polydisperse mixing of particle is more homogeneous.

References
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Yan, W.-C., Luo, Z.-H., Lu, Y.-H. and Chen, X.-D. (2012). A CFD-PBM-PMLM integrated
model for the gassolid flow fields in fluidized bed polymerization

0
1
2
3
4
5
0.00E+00 2.50E+00 5.00E+00
v
e
l
o
c
i
t
y

(
m
/
s
)

Bed Diameter (m)
y=1m y=20m