Journal Identication = CHERD Article Identication = 621 Date: May 17, 2011 Time: 5:48am

chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 817826

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Chemical Engineering Research and Design
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ cher d
Characterization of solids mixing patterns in bubbling
uidized beds
H.R. Norouzi
a
, N. Mostou
a,
, Z. Mansourpour
a
, R. Sotudeh-Gharebagh
a
, J. Chaouki
b
a
Process Design and Simulation Research Center, Oil and Gas Centre of Excellence, School of Chemical Engineering, College of
Engineering, University of Tehran, PO Box 11155-4563, Tehran, Iran
b
Department of Chemical Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Montreal, Canada
a b s t r a c t
Behavior of the solid phase in uidized beds was studied by a 2D CFD-DEM approach to obtain more information
on the solid mixing and circulation. Hydrodynamic parameters, including solid diffusivity, and internal and gross
circulations were considered in this study. To validate the simulation, time-position data obtained by the Radioactive
Particle Tracking (RPT) technique were used. It was shown that the 2D model can satisfactorily predict the axial
diffusivity, while the radial diffusivity calculated based on the model is an order of magnitude smaller than the
experimental one in 3D. The inuence of aspect ratio of the bed, type of distributor, and inlet gas velocity on solids
mixing pattern were also studied. The solids ow pattern in the bed changed considerably by increasing the aspect
ratio. Different solid circulations were captured by numerical model for the two types of distributors, namely porous
and injection types. The results suggested that increasing the supercial gas velocity caused rigorous internal and
gross circulations, which in return, improved solids mixing and decreased deviations from well mixed state.
2010 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Fluidized bed; Discrete element method; Computational uid dynamic; Solid mixing
1. Introduction
Althoughthe mechanisms of solid mixing are well understood
now, there is still much to be learned. Bubbles are mainly
responsible for mixing in uidized beds. When a bubble rises
through the emulsion, it carries some particles to the bed
surface in its wake. A down ow of solids in the regions sur-
rounding the rising bubble results in the axial circulation of
particles in the bed. At the same time, the lateral mixing of
solids occurs, which is caused by the lateral motion of bubbles
(due to interaction and coalescence of neighboring bubbles)
and lateral dispersion of particles in the bubbles wake at the
bed surface (due to the eruption of the bubble) (Rhodes et al.,
2001).
The clear observation of solid mixing inside a dense
uidized bed is hardly possible through sophisticated exper-
imental techniques. Consequently, numerical simulation can
be proposed and exploited to provide an insight into the
solid mixing within the uidized beds. Fortunately, the recent
progress in the computational methods, especially computing

Corresponding author. Fax: +98 21 6646 1024.

E-mail address: mostou@ut.ac.ir (N. Mostou).
Received3 July2010; Receivedinrevisedform21 September 2010; Accepted12 October 2010
resources, has allowed the carrying out of detailed simula-
tions of many aspects of the complex phenomena occurring
in the particulate systems. Available mathematical models
for gassolid systems can be grouped into two main cate-
gories: the continuumcontinuum approach at a macroscopic
level represented by the two-uid models (TFM) (Anderson
and Jackson, 1967) and the continuum-discrete approach at
a microscopic level mainly represented by the combined
computational uid dynamics and discrete element method
(Cundall and Strack, 1979) (CFD-DEM). In the CFD-DEM, the
motion of particles is modeled as a discrete phase, described
by Newtons second law of motion for an individual particle,
while the ow of uid (gas or liquid) is treated as a continuum
phase, described by the local averaged Navier-Stokes equation
in a computational cell. It has been recognized as an effective
method to study the fundamentals of particleuid ow at
various conditions, as briey reviewed by Deen et al. (2007).
As the measurement of the solids velocity in uidized beds
is difcult, there have been very few researches on the solids
circulation in the uidized beds. Among few works, Mostou
0263-8762/$ see front matter 2010 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cherd.2010.10.014
Journal Identication = CHERD Article Identication = 621 Date: May 17, 2011 Time: 5:48am
818 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 817826
Nomenclature
A
i
area of particle i (m
2
)
A
cell
area of uid cell (m
2
)
C
D
uid drag coefcient
D bed diameter (m)
d
pi
particle diameter (m)
D
r
radial solid diffusivity (m
2
s
1
)
D
z
axial solid diffusivity (m
2
s
1
)

c.ij
contact force between particle i and j (N)

d.ij
damping force (N)

.i
particleuid interaction force (N)

p
volumetric uidparticle interaction force
(Nm
3
)

g.i
gravitational force (N)

g gravitational acceleration (ms

2
)
I
i
moment of inertia (kgm
2
)
H bed height (m)
k
c
number of particles in a computational cell
k
i
number of particles in contact with particle i
k
n
normal spring coefcient (Nm
1
)
k
t
tangential spring coefcient (Nm
1
)
m
i
mass of particle (kg)
P uid pressure (Pa)
r radial position of tracer (m)

R
i
radius vector (from particle center to contact
point) (m)

T
i.j
torque (Nm)
t time (s)

U uid velocity (ms

1
)
U
0
supercial gas velocity (ms
1
)
U
mf
minimum uidization velocity (ms
1
)

v
i
particle velocity (ms
1
)

v
r.ij
relative velocity of particle i and j (ms
1
)
V
c
cell volume (m
3
)
z axial position of tracer (m)
Greek symbols

i
ccll
fractional area of particle i residing in the uid
cell
inter-phase momentum transfer coefcient
(kgm
3
s
1
)
deformation coefcient (m)
porosity
j
i
damping coefcient
j inter-particle friction coefcient
j
f
uid viscosity (kgm
1
s
2
)
,
f
uid density (kgm
3
)
t uid viscose stress tensor (Nm
2
)

i
angular velocity of particle (s
1
)
and Chaouki (2001) studied the diffusivity of solid particles in
both bubbling and turbulent regimes. Their results show that
the diffusivities increase with the supercial gas velocity, and
they are correlated linearly to the axial solid velocity gradient.
They (Mostou and Chaouki, 2000) also studied solids behav-
iors, including restricted and unrestricted axial movement
of solids, by processing the data obtained by a Radioactive
Particle Tracking (RPT) technique. The nano-particles mixing
behavior ina nano-agglomerate uidizedbedwas investigated
experimentally by Huang et al. (2008). Shen et al. (1995) used a
model that consisted of an upward moving wake phase and a
downwards owing emulsion phase, to investigate the radial
and vertical mixing of solids. Kobayashi et al. (2000) proposed
a novel bubble distribution model based on the population
balance of bubbles to investigate the solids circulation in the
bubbling uidized beds, and veried the proposed model by
comparing its results with the experimental ndings. Zhang
et al. (2010) investigated the particle motion and mixing in
the at-bottom spout-uid bed by CFD-DEM method. Wu and
Zhan (2007) used a hard-sphere DEM model to study the
mixing behavior of particles for two kinds of inlet congura-
tions, under specic supercial gas velocities. As Lagrangian
approaches (i.e. DEM) provide us withthe trajectory of the indi-
vidual particles, studding the mixing phenomena can be the
possible applicationof this method. Therefore, the objective of
this paper is to investigate the use of discrete element method
(DEM) simulation to study solid mixing in gas-uidized beds.
Simulated axial and radial dispersion coefcients were com-
pared with the experimental ones to validate the model. The
inuences of the bed geometry, type of distributor, and the
inlet gas velocity on the axial and radial solid circulation were
then investigated numerically.
2. Experiments
The experiments were conducted in a Plexiglas uidized bed
witha 152mminternal diameter anda 1500mmheight. As the
uidizing gas, air at the room temperature and atmospheric
pressure was blown into the bed through a bubble cap distrib-
utor. An orice plate was used to measure the gas ow rate.
Air leaving the top of the column passed through a cyclone
to return the entrained solid particles back to the bed. The
column was initially lled with sand up to approximately 1.5
times its diameter. The mean particle diameter and density of
sand were 650m and 2650kg/m
3
, respectively. Experiments
were conducted at supercial gas velocity of 1m/s.
Time-position data was obtained by the RPT technique. In
the experiment, asingle tracer was placedintothe bedtomove
freely withother particles. The tracer was made of a mixture of
gold powder and epoxy resin with a density of 2600kg/m
3
. The
tracer was activated in the SLOWPOKE nuclear reactor of Ecole
Polytechnique before the experiment. The sampling period
was 2ms and 8.1210
5
data were captured during 27min.
More information about the experiments are described by
Mostou et al. (2003) and Mostou and Chaouki (2004). Details
of the systemcalibration and the inverse reconstruction strat-
egy for tracer position rendition are described by Larachi et al.
(1994, 1995).
3. Modeling
In the present work, the ow of spheres in a two-dimensional
geometry was investigated. Newtons second law of motion
was applied to describe the movement of individual particles.
The translational and the rotational motions of the particles
at any time t, can be described by the following equations (Xu
and Yu, 1997):
m
i
d

v
i
dt
=

.i
+
kLi

j=1
(

c.i.j
+

d.i.j
) +

.i
(1)
Journal Identication = CHERD Article Identication = 621 Date: May 17, 2011 Time: 5:48am
chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 817826 819
Table 1 Forces component and torque acting on particle i.
Forces or torque Symbol Equation
Normal forces Contact

cn.ij
(k
n

c.ij
) n
i
Damping

dn.ij
(j
i
v
r.ij
. n
i
) n
i
Tangential forces Contact

ct.ij

min(j|

cn.ij
|. |k
t

t.ij

t
i
|)

t.ij
|
t.ij
|

t
i
[5pt] Damping

dt.ij
j
i
[( v
r.ij
.

t
i
) +(
i

R
i

j

R
j
)]
Torque Interparticle

T
i.j

R
i

c.ij
Gravity

g.i
m
i
g
Fluid drag force

.i
V
pi
1
(

U v
i
)
=

150
(1 )
2
j

2
d
2
pi
+1.75
,

(1 )|

U v
i
|
d
pi
. - 0.8
3
4
C
D
,

(1 )|

U v
i
|
d
pi

2.65
. 0.8
C
D
=

24[1 +0.15Rc
0.687
p.i
]
Rc
p.i
. Rc
p.i
- 1000
0.44. Rc
p.i
1000
where

R
i
= x
j
x
i
. n
i
=
R
i
| R
i
|
. v
r.ij
= v
i
v
j
. Rc
,.i
=
,

d
pi
|

U v
t
|
j

.

F
p
=
i=kc

i=1

.i
Vc
.
and
I
i
d
i
dt
=
k
i

j=1

T
i.j
(2)
The contact forces between the particles and between the
particle and wall were calculated according to the soft sphere
method (Cundall and Strack, 1979). Since the density of solid
particle is much greater than that of gas phase, the buoyant
force acting on each particle was ignored.
The gas phase is treated as a continuous phase and its
motion is dened by equations of continuity and momentum
balance based on the local mean variables on the uid cell
(Anderson and Jackson, 1967).

t
+ (

U) = 0 (3)
and
(,

U)
t
+ (,

U) = P

F
p
+ ( t) +,

g (4)
Eq. (4) is similar to the equation used in the TFM, referred
to as Model B formulation (Feng and Yu, 2004) which assumes
that the pressure drop is applied to the gas phase only. The
gas and the solid phases are coupled together through poros-
ity anduidparticle interactionforce,

F
p
. Particle velocity, gas
phase velocity eld and porosity are used to calculate the force
acting on each particle. Eq. (1) was then integrated over one
time step to obtain new position of particles. These positions
were used to calculate the porosity in each uid cell and fol-
lowed by the calculation of the gas phase velocity eld based
on the new uidparticle interaction force and porosity. Equa-
tions used to calculate uidparticle force and contact forces
between particles are listed in Table 1.
In each uid cell, porosity was calculated based on the area
occupied by the particles in the cell. The size of uid cell was
smaller than the macroscopic motion of particles but larger
than the particle size (3 times the diameter of particles). The
2D porosity in each cell was calculated by the following equa-
tion:

2D
= 1
1
A
Ccll
kC

i=1

i
ccll
A
i
(5)
where
i
ccll
is the fractional area of particle i presenting in each
cell and A
i
is the area of that particle. The porosity calculated
by this method is based on the 2D analysis. Therefore, it is
inconsistent with the drag force formula used in this work
since the drag force correlation is actually given for a 3D sys-
tem. To overcome this inconsistency, the equation suggested
by Hoomans et al. (1996) was used for translating the porosity
from 2D to 3D:

3D
= 1
2

3
(1
2D
)
3,2
(6)
The SIMPLE (Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure-Linked
Equations) algorithm, introduced by Patankar (1980), was uti-
lized to solve the gas phase equations. The rst order up-wind
scheme was used for the convection terms. The cell size for
the calculationof gas owwas 2mm2mm. Inthe case of the
uid velocity, the no-slip boundary condition was applied to
the walls and the fully developed condition to the exit at the
top. The size of the particles in the simulations was 650m
which is equal to the mean diameter of the particles used in
the experimental data. Initial aspect ratios were 0.5, 1.0, and
1.5 for which approximately 34,000, 67,000 and 110,000 par-
ticles were used respectively in the simulations. An initially
packed bed of particles was uidized at different supercial
gas velocities from near the minimum uidization velocity to
1m/s. All simulations continued up to 30s. Table 2 summa-
rizes the computational conditions and parameters used in
the simulations. The minimum uidization velocity of parti-
Journal Identication = CHERD Article Identication = 621 Date: May 17, 2011 Time: 5:48am
820 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 817826
Table 2 Computational conditions used in the present simulations.
Particles Gas
Particle shape Spherical Fluid air
Mean particle diameter (m) 650 CFD cell Width (m) 210
3
Density (kgm
3
) 2650 Height (m) 210
3
Spring constant (Nm
1
) 800 Bed geometry Width (m) 0.15
Sliding friction coefcient 0.3 Height (m) 0.9
Restitution coefcient 0.9 Viscosity (kgm
1
s
1
) 1.710
5
Time step (s) 110
5
U
mf
(ms
1
) 0.35
Time step (s) 110
4
cles was calculated by the equation proposed by Lucas et al.
(1986) for round particles.
4. Treatment of data
The mixing pattern in the bubbling uidized bed was stud-
ied by using the experimental data and numerical results.
Because of Lagrangian approach in the solid phase, the same
data processing can be done for both RPT data and DEM sim-
ulation. Hydrodynamic parameters such as solid diffusivity,
and internal and gross solid circulations, which are represen-
tative of solids mixing in the bed, were evaluated based on
time-position particle trajectory. To calculate these parame-
ters, different programs based on the physical concept of each
abovementioned parameters were developed. The algorithm
of these computer programs are described in the following
sections.
4.1. Solid diffusivity
In order to calculate axial and radial diffusivities, a large num-
ber of solid tracers should be injected in a small cell in the bed.
The principle of ergodicity is used to simulate a large num-
ber of tracers in the cell while there is only one tracer in the
experiments. Details of this method have been described by
Mostou and Chaouki (2001). Using their proposed method, a
large number of tracers (1000 tracers) can be virtually injected
into the imaginary compartment in the bed. According to
Mostou and Chaouki (2001), solid diffusivity can be evaluated
from the trajectory of tracers in the Lagrangian coordinates. If
at the time t =0, 1000 tracers are released from (r
0
, z
0
) inside
the injection cell, instantaneous excess axial displacement of
each of the released traces can be dened as:
Z = z(t) z
0
(7)
The average displacement at time can be calculated from:

Z =
1
1000
1000

i=1
Z
i
(8)
and mean-square displacement is given by:

Z
2
=
1
1000
1000

i=1
(Z
i

Z)
2
(9)
From which the axial solid diffusivity can be obtained:
D
z
=
1
2
d

Z
2
dt
(10)
If

Z
2
is plotted vs. time, a straight line is obtained from
slope of which the solid diffusivity in the radial direction can
be obtained by the same procedure described above. Similar
method was considered for processing data obtained in the
numerical simulations. Fig. 1 shows 1000 tracers which are
initially in the injection cell. These tracers move in both axial
and radial directions as time passes. The axial movement of
particles is more rigorous comparedtothe radial displacement
of particles. This dominant axial movement of particles canbe
attributed to the effect of the rising bubble and the wake just
below it. Furthermore, the radial movement of particles near
the bed surface (14cm) is higher than that of the lower parts.
This is mainlydue tothe bubble bursting whichaccelerates the
radial movement of particles.
4.2. Solids circulation
In the bubbling uidized beds, particles move mainly as a
result of the passage of bubbles through the bed. Particles are
entrained in the wake of the rising bubbles at the scale of the
Fig. 1 Position of 1000 tracer data versus time.
Journal Identication = CHERD Article Identication = 621 Date: May 17, 2011 Time: 5:48am
chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 817826 821
distributor zone
bed surface
Gross circulation Internal circulation
circulation length
Fig. 2 Schematic of gross and internal circulations in the
bed.
bed height. To maintain continuity, a downward, and a more
or less continuous, ow of particles must exist in the dense
phase. The passage of a bubble also induces a drift effect in
the dense phase which results in a loop displacement of the
particles at the scale of the bubble diameter. These two mech-
anisms are mainly responsible for solids mixing in bubbling
uidized beds, which are called gross and internal circula-
tions, respectively (Moslemian, 1987).
Fig. 2 demonstrates gross circulation and internal circula-
tion of a sample tracer in the bed. According to this gure,
in a gross circulation, the tracer moves from the distributor
zone toward the bed surface and returns to the distributor
zone while in an internal circulation the tracer travels shorter
path in comparison with that in the gross circulation and then
returns to its original height. The circulation length is dened
as the vertical displacement of the tracer in this circulation.
The circulationlengthis nearly as long as the active bedheight
in gross circulations while it is almost as long as the diameter
of bubbles in internal circulations. A program was developed
to detect these circulations according to the abovementioned
concepts.
Fig. 3a and b show 10-s axial trajectories of a tracer in the
simulated and experimental bed, respectively. Both gross and
internal circulations which correspond to solids mixing in the
bed can be found in both gures. Circulations identied with
letter A are considered as internal circulations and circu-
lations identied with letter B correspond to a typical gross
circulationinthe bed. Besides the circulationlength, the num-
ber of circulations and their duration were also calculated.
In order to conrm that the selected particles are the rep-
resentative of the whole ow pattern in the bed, the position
of these 1000 tracers is plotted in Fig. 4a and b at t =2s and
t =12s, respectively. Fig. 4b shows that the tracers explore the
whole bed during 10s and consequently, can represent well
the overall bed hydrodynamics.
5. Results and discussion
5.1. Simulation validation
To validate the simulation, predicted axial and radial diffusivi-
ties, representative of the owstructure of uidizedbeds, were
compared with the experimental diffusivities. Fig. 5 shows a
comparison between the experimental and the calculated dif-
fusivities vs. dimensionless height at supercial gas velocity
of 1ms
1
. To eliminate the entrance and exit effects, diffusiv-
ity was not calculated in the zones near the distributor plate
and the bed surface. The axial diffusivity (values on the left
side vertical axis) obtained from the simulation agrees rea-
Fig. 3 (a and b) Detection of circulations with different
lengths for sample trajectory of a tracer.
Fig. 4 (a) initial position of 1000 injected tracers and (b)
swept area of the bed by 1000 tracers during 10s.
Journal Identication = CHERD Article Identication = 621 Date: May 17, 2011 Time: 5:48am
822 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 817826
0.000
0.001
0.010
0.100
0.000
0.005
0.010
0.015
0.020
0.025
0.030
0.035
0.040
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
D
r
(
m
2
/
s
)
D
z
(
m
2
/
s
)
h/H
Dz-Model
Dz-Experiment
Dr-Model
Dr-Experiment
Fig. 5 A comparison between the experimental and
calculated axial and radial diffusivity at 1ms
1
supercial
gas velocity.
sonably well with the experimental results. In contrast, the
radial diffusivity (values onthe right side vertical axis) shows a
large deviation from the experimental results. This gure also
demonstrates that the axial diffusivity is an order of magni-
tude greater than the radial diffusivity. Particles in a uidized
bed move as a result of the drag force caused by the passing
of gas through bubbles and emulsion. In the bubbling regime,
bubbles rise along a vertical line and deviate less in the lateral
direction. Therefore, the drag force exerted on particles, and
consequently the particles velocity, are dominant in the axial
direction.
The deviation between the simulated and the experimen-
tal diffusivities can be attributed to the two-dimensional
approach used in this study. It is the consequence of omit-
ting one dimension in the simulation (from 3D to 2D), which
mainly affects the radial component. The effect of this omit-
ting on the axial component, which is an order of magnitude
larger than the lateral one, is negligible. As a result, the axial
diffusivity predicted in the simulation is in general similar
to those observed by experiments while the radial diffusiv-
ity shows a considerable difference. It should be noted that
according to Xie et al. (2008) a 2D Cartesian model agrees well
with a 3D cylindrical experiment at low velocities due to the
fact that the axial terms are dominant. Therefore, at the veloc-
ity of 3U
mf
considered in this study (bubbling regime), the 2D
Cartesian simulation can be satisfactorily validated by the 3D
cylindrical experiment in the axial direction. However, a 2D
simulation cannot be used to study the bed behavior in the
radial direction. According to Fig. 5, diffusivity is mainly con-
stant against height. This is due to the fact that inthe bubbling
uidized beds, the bubbles with constant diameter rise at con-
stant velocity above the coalescence zoon. As the bubbles play
the main role in the solid mixing, the axial diffusivity remains
constant.
5.2. Qualitative study of solids mixing
Solid mixing in a freely bubbling uidized bed is caused not
only by the vertical movement of the bubbles and the bursting
of bubbles at the bed surface, but also by the lateral motion of
bubbles as a result of the interaction and coalescence between
the neighboring bubbles. According to Stein et al. (2000), bub-
bles can be considered as kinetic energy sources for particles,
and the emulsion phase as a kinetic energy sink, while the
source to sink energy transfer takes place through the drift
region. This energy transfer causes internal circulation at the
scale of bubbles diameter in the drift regions. Consequently,
the two general mechanisms internal circulation and gross
circulation control the solids mixing in the bed. All results
presented in this section are obtained from simulation data.
Fig. 6 shows the void fraction contour and the solid ux
vectors at different times for a bed with H/D=1.5 and porous
plate distributor. Bubbles and the emulsionphase canbe iden-
tied by light gray and dark gray colors respectively, and solid
ux vectors are in white color. The solids ux was determined
from the porosity and velocity of particles at each time step.
Fig. 6 (ad) Void fraction contours and solid ux vectors of the bed with porous plate distributer.
Journal Identication = CHERD Article Identication = 621 Date: May 17, 2011 Time: 5:48am
chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 817826 823
In each uid cell, the average particle velocity was multiplied
by void fraction and particle density. The formation of bubbles
at the vicinity of the distributor, the growth of bubbles, their
coalescence and breakage can be seen in this gure. Three
distinct bubbles can be observed in Fig. 6a. These bubbles are
close to each other and each one is partly in the wake of the
upper bubble. Since the bubbles are small enough in compar-
ison to the bed diameter, the persistent upward movement of
the particles is induced in the bed. This upward movement is
compensated by the downward movement of the particles in
the emulsion and in the region close to the wall. In this condi-
tion, gross circulation is formed through the bed. Major solid
loops showninthis slide, represent the gross andinternal solid
circulations in the bed. In Fig. 6b, the lower bubble is pulled
toward the upper bubble because there is a negative pressure
in the wake region in comparison to the surrounding emul-
sion. In Fig. 6c, the bubbles have coalesced completely and a
larger bubble at the scale of the bed diameter is formed. This
large bubble has a rigorous wake whichinduces a large upward
ow of the solid beneath the bubble while limits the down-
ward solid ow through the bed. The unbalanced upward and
downward solid owaround the bubble results in its breakage
in the last slide (Fig. 6d). That is, from the material point of
view, bubble breakage occurs to compensate for the upward
ow of the solid in the wake and drift of this rising bubble.
The bubble breakage causes the internal particle circulation,
which results in the rapid local mixing of the particles. These
circulations are illustrated in Fig. 6d with bold white arrows.
Comparison between Fig. 6a and d reveals that in Fig. 6d,
the bubble diameter in distributor zone is larger than that of
Fig. 6a. This result can be attributed to the fact that the rig-
orous wake and upward solids movement without sufcient
downward solid movement causes a solid reductioninthe dis-
tributor zone. Thus, the void fraction increases in this region
and bubbles with larger diameters are formed.
5.3. Effect of distributor type on the mixing pattern
In order to investigate the effect of distributor type on the
mixing pattern of particles, an injection type distributor was
usedinthe simulation. For this purpose, a two-hole distributor
(22mminner diameter and 60mmpitch) at the bed center was
employed. Fig. 7 shows the void fraction contour and solids
ux vectors for the injectionvelocity of 3.3m/s (equal to super-
cial gas velocity U
0
=0.75m/s). The two injection holes are
visible inthis gure. Byfollowing the beddynamics from12s to
12.12s, it can be seen that a single bubble is formed just above
the distributor plate, detaches from holes, and rises vertically
at the center of the bed. Asmall bubble is formedjust belowthe
large bubble and rapidly coalesces into it. According to Fig. 6a
and Fig. 7b, it can be observed that in case of the injection
distributor, there is a larger time lag between the successive
bubbles compared to the porous plate type distributor. Since
the bubble size is small compared to the bed diameter in case
of the injection distributor, wall effects are minimized and the
tendency of bubble breakup and coalescence is reduced. The
same ow pattern and bubble behavior were observed in 2D
experiments (Utikar and Ranade, 2007). In addition, it can be
seen in Fig. 6 that the bed is divided into three regions: an
upward moving bubble phase free of solids, an upward solids
phase moving approximate to the bubbles, and a downward
moving dense phase. This ow pattern causes the gross circu-
lation of particles.
Fig. 7 Solid ow pattern and void fraction contour in
injection type distributor, U
injection
=3.3m/s: (a) 12.0s and (b)
12.12s.
5.4. Effect of aspect ratio on the mixing pattern
It is well known that the rate of solids circulation and the
degree of mixing are primarily determined by the gas velocity.
However, other parameters such as particle shape and their
size distributionalso play a part. Bed geometry is animportant
parameter insolidmixing. Toinvestigate this effect, three beds
with different aspect ratios (H/D=0.5, 1.0 and 1.5) were simu-
lated using a porous plate distributor. Fig. 8 shows solids ow
pattern in the bed. The arrows at this gure demonstrate the
overall ow of particles. In the shallow bed (H/D=0.5) the pre-
dominant pattern is the down owof solid at the centre which
deects the bubbles towards the walls and forms two bubble
paths in the bed. Increasing the aspect ratio to 1.0 changes the
solids ow pattern considerably. In this case, bubbles formed
at the distributor plate rise vertically in the centre of the bed
which induces solids up ow at the centre and continuous
solids down ow near the walls. In a deeper bed (H/D=1.5)
the ow pattern at the distributor region resembles the one
observed in the shallow bed and changes into a central up
ow-wall down owpattern at higher elevations (Baeyens and
Geldart, 1986).
5.5. Effect of velocity on circulation length, circulation
time and number of circulations
According to the procedure described in the data treatment
section, the distributions of solids circulation lengths in the
bed(at H/D=1) withporous plate distributor at different super-
cial gas velocities were evaluated, and they are plotted in
Fig. 9. This gure shows that as the gas velocity increases,
the maximumcirculation length, and consequently the active
bedheight, increases. Moreover, Fig. 9 demonstrates that there
are two peaks in the circulation length distribution at each
supercial gas velocity. The sharp peak at the lower lengths
corresponds to the internal circulations and the wide peak
Journal Identication = CHERD Article Identication = 621 Date: May 17, 2011 Time: 5:48am
824 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 817826
Fig. 8 Effect of bed geometry on solid circulations.
at the higher lengths corresponds to the gross circulations.
It can be seen that the both internal and gross circulations
are responsible for the solids mixing in the bubbling beds.
Increasing the gas velocity increases the number of the both
internal and gross circulations. As more gas passes through
the bed, more energetic bubbles are formed, and the gross cir-
culation, whichis the mainresult of bubble passage, increases.
The sharper peak which corresponds to the internal circula-
tions suggests that increasing the gas velocity results in more
gas entering into the bed, which increases the void fraction of
the bubble wake. In return, the wake viscosity decreases and
consequently, the formation of internal circulations become
easier andtheir number grows higher. These phenomena were
described qualitatively in the previous section.
The situation is different when the gas velocity is close
to the minimum uidization (U
0
=0.53m/s). It can be seen in
Fig. 8 that the wide peak has completely vanished. At this
velocity, the largest circulation length is limited to 2cm and
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
0 5 10 15 20
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

C
i
r
c
u
l
a
t
i
o
n
s

(
-
)
Circulation Length (cm)
Uo = 0.53 m/s
Uo = 0.70 m/s
Uo = 0.80 m/s
Uo = 1 m/s
Fig. 9 Distribution of solid circulation lengths in the bed
with porous plate distributor at different supercial gas
velocities, H/D=1.
there is a sharp peak around 0.4cm. This structure indicates
that at low supercial gas velocity, particles obtain energy
from gas passing through the emulsion phase (that is just
enough to keep particles suspended), in contrast to the bub-
bling regime in which particles obtain energy from the rising
bubbles. In this condition, the particles move randomly in
different directions inside the emulsion at the scale of the par-
ticle diameter. This conrms that bubbles inbubbling uidized
beds are the main cause of solids circulation and solid mixing
mechanisms change considerably in the absence of bubbles.
A comparison between the sample experimental data and
the simulation results in terms of the circulation length dis-
tribution is presented in Fig. 10. The supercial gas velocity
and bed aspect ratio were, respectively, 1ms
1
and 1.5 and
the porous plate distributes was used. Generally, the model
could satisfactorily predict the overall trend of the circula-
tion length distribution in the experiment. The shape of both
trends and the active bed height of the bed are the same. In
the experiment in comparison with the simulation, the sharp
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

C
i
r
c
u
l
a
t
i
o
n
s

(
-
)
Circulation Length (cm)
Experiment
Simulation
Fig. 10 Distribution of circulations length for simulation
and experiments, bed with porous plate distributor,
H/D=1.5 and U
0
=1m/s.
Journal Identication = CHERD Article Identication = 621 Date: May 17, 2011 Time: 5:48am
chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 817826 825
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
0 2 4 6 8
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

C
i
r
c
u
l
a
t
i
o
n
s

(
-
)
Circulation time (sec)
Uo = 0.70 m/s
Uo = 0.80 m/s
Uo = 1 m/s
Fig. 11 Time and number of circulations at various
supercial velocities, H/D=1.
peak which corresponds to the internal circulations is more in
number, and it shifts from 4cm to 7cm. In addition, the num-
ber of circulations with greater lengths in the experiment is a
bit less than that of in the simulation.
Circulation time of tracers is also an important parameter
in mixing, especially when a reaction occurs in the uidized
bed. The distribution of circulation time of particles for a bed
with H/D=1 and porous plate distributor is shown in Fig. 11.
This gure illustrates that there is a sharp peak at lower times
at high supercial gas velocity. It can be concluded that in
this case, mixing has improved and the solid phase in the
bed tends to become well mixed. As the supercial gas veloc-
ity decreases, the peak becomes wider and shifts toward the
higher residence times. Inother words, at lower supercial gas
velocities, the circulationtime of particles alters inthe bedand
the uidized bed deviates from the well-mixed state.
It is known that the axial diffusivity decreases in the pres-
ence of internal circulations while it increases by increasing
gross circulations (Moslemian, 1987). The axial diffusivity cal-
culated based on the simulations is shown in Fig. 12 as a
function of the supercial gas velocity and compared with
the equation proposed by Mostou and Chaouki (2001). It
0.000
0.002
0.004
0.006
0.008
0.010
0.012
0.4 0.6 0.8 1
D
z

(
m
2
/
s
)
Inlet Velocity (m/s)
Simulation
Mostoufi and Chaouki (2001)
Fig. 12 The axial diffusivity as a function of supercial
gas velocity for porous plate distributor, H/D=1.
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
0 10 20 30 40
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

C
i
r
c
u
l
a
t
i
o
n
s

(
-
)
Circulation Length (cm)
Uo = 0.60 m/s
Uo = 0.67 m/s
Uo =0.75 m/s
Uo = 0.82 m/s
Fig. 13 Distribution of solid circulation lengths in the bed
with injection type distributor at different supercial gas
velocities, H/D=1.5.
can be seen in this gure that a good agreement exists
between the simulation results and the equation of Mostou
and Chaouki (2001). Increasing the supercial gas velocity to
0.8ms
1
enhances the axial diffusivity sharply while by fur-
ther increase in the supercial gas velocity beyond 0.8ms
1
,
the axial diffusivity increases slowly. This can be attributed to
the solids circulation pattern in the bed. Increasing the super-
cial gas velocity results in increasing both internal and gross
circulations (see Fig. 9). At low supercial gas velocity (less
than 0.8ms
1
) increasing gross circulations is dominant in
comparison with internal circulations. But at higher super-
cial gas velocities, the role of internal circulations becomes
more effective, which results in the reduction of the slope of
axial diffusivity vs. supercial gas velocity.
Fig. 13 shows the distribution of circulation length at var-
ious supercial gas velocities when using an injection type
distributor. As expected, at low supercial gas velocity (less
than 0.67ms
1
), there is a wide peak which corresponds to
the gross circulations. This peak increases by increasing the
supercial gas velocity. At supercial gas velocities beyond
0.67ms
1
, the same trend that was observed in Fig. 9 can
be seen. That is, as the supercial gas velocity increases, the
sharp peak, which corresponds to the internal circulation,
increases while the number of gross circulations reduces. Such
a trend can be explained by the fact that by increasing the
supercial gas velocity, the bubble size increases and the bub-
bling regime tends to the slugging regime. Therefore, because
of the wall effects, the possibility of the phenomena such as
bubble breakage strengthens and the local circulationof solids
in the uidized bed increases accordingly.
6. Conclusions
A CFD-DEM technique was used to investigate the solids cir-
culation in gassolid uidized beds. The results of the model
were compared with the experimental RPT data to validate
the model. Effect of gas velocity, distributor type, and bed
aspect ratio on solids owpattern and mixing properties were
studied. The results obtained in this study are summarized as
follows:
Journal Identication = CHERD Article Identication = 621 Date: May 17, 2011 Time: 5:48am
826 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 817826
The 2D model successfully captured the 3D experimental
solid diffusivity in the axial direction while it overestimates
the experimental results in the radial direction. The axial
diffusivity of particles remained constant along the bed
height, excluding distributor and surface zones.
A qualitative understanding of solids ow pattern of the
whole bed was obtained by reviewing snapshots obtained
from the simulation results. Phenomena such as bubble
formation and bubble growth, the coalescence and the
breakage of bubbles and solids circulations were clearly
observed.
The inuence of distributor type was investigated. Hydro-
dynamics and solids ow pattern in the bed were altered by
using an injection type distributor instead of porous plate.
Individual bubbles were formed at distributor zone and rose
up vertically with higher time lags compared to the porous
plate. Therefore, in the case of injection distributor, the ver-
tical movement of bubbles is less affected by coalescence
and breakage and the solids ow pattern tends to the gross
circulation.
By increasing the aspect ratio of the bed, the solids owpat-
tern changed considerably. At aspect ratio lower than one,
the ow pattern was consistent with that of the shallow
beds. At aspect ratio equal to one, the owchanged into the
central up ow-wall down ow pattern. By further increase
in the aspect ratio to 1.5, a circulation pattern similar to
the shallow bed was formed above the distributor and a
central up ow-wall down ow above this region could be
recognized.
Both gross and internal circulations with positive and neg-
ative impacts respectively, affect the axial diffusivity of
particles. At higher supercial gas velocities, the role of
gross circulations becomes more effective than the internal
circulations and they result in enhancing the axial diffusiv-
ity.
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