APPLICATION OF A DISPERSION MODEL FOR BUBBLE DYNAMICS IN THREE-PHASE FLUIDIZED BEDS S.L.P. Lee and H.I. de Lasa Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty of Engineering Science The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 5B9 STRACT The local gas hold-up and gas bubble velocity in three-phase fluidized beds with single injector were measured by spherical head optical fiber probes. A radial gas dispersion model was applied to analyse the bubble dynamics in the TPFB. The gas dispersion is high in the grid region and the dispersion coefficient decreases gradually with the axial height. There are two different approaches for the hydrodynamic study of three- phase fluidized beds (TPFB). The first technique (Kim et al,(1)) gives overall gas hold-up using the pressure profile along the fluidized bed, the total amount of solids particles and the continuity of the three Phases. In this case, the phase hold-up is considered uniform throughout the fluidized bed. The second method of gas hold-up measurement (Rigby and Capes (2)) and Begovich and Watson (3)) uses in situ measuring Probes. The advantage of the in-situ measuring probes is that detailed information of local phase hold-ups can be obtained. The probe measurements show that there is a distribution, instead of a constant phase hold-ups i TPFB. Another important fluid dynamic parameter for TPFB is the gas bubble rising velocity. The gas bubble velocity can be obtained from either the in situ measuring probes (Rigby and Capes (2), de Lasa et al. (4), Lee et al. (3)) or the analysis of bubble images on a flat two-dimensional bed (Henriksen and Ostergaard (6), Kim et al. (Z)). Recently, Lee and de Lasa (8) combined the local gas hold-ups and bubble velocities, measured by optical fiber probes, to test a radial dispersion model for TPFB. This radial dispersion model was developed to describe the gas hold-up distribution in a TPFB. The dispersion model adequately describes the gas hold-ups throughout the colum. In order to have a thorough assessment of the radial dispersion model, further investigation is carried out in the present study with a single gas injector positioned at the centre of cylindrical TPFB. The central jet provides a well defined initial gas hold-up distribution and an effective way for assessing the radial dispersion model applicability. 531532 FLUIDIZATION VI RIMI ET-UI The experiments were performed in a cylindrical fluidized bed of 0.2 m internal diameter. Air, water and glass beads of 250 ym were used as the gas, liquid, and solid phases. The details of the apparatus and the experimental procedure were described in Lee and de Lasa (5). However, a different gas injection system was used in this study. A single gas injector of 1.25 cm0.D. was positioned at the centre of the grid. such arrangement provides a well defined initial condition for the bubble dynamics study. A porous metal plate was placed at the tip of the gas injector to generate small bubbles. The pore size of the plate was 40 wm. The local gas hold-up and bubble velocity were measured by optical fiber probes. The probe is similar to the one described in de Lasa et al. (4) and Lee (9). In fact, the optical probe used in this study is @ special case of the U-shaped probe discussed in Lee (9). Two optical fibers of 400 ym core diameter were placed in parallel, as shown in Fig. 1. The two ends of the fibers were fused together to form a sphere where the detecting of gas bubbles took place. The diameter of spherical tip is approximately 1 mm. This spherical head probe has two advantages over the U-shaped probe. The first is that the size of the probe is smaller. The other advantage is that it is easier to fabricate. The characteristics of the probe signal is the same as that of a U-shaped Probe. However, the baseline of the signal from the new probe is very close to zero. Therefore, The baseline can not be used to assess the solid hold-up in the TPFB. TA, SIS A cross correlation technique was applied to measure the average bubble rising velocity. Two optical fiber probes aligned vertically with a separation of 0.94 cm were used in this study. The normalized cross- correlation function (NCCF) was used to measure the time delay between the signals from the two probes: and Ry 7 (Cy )1/ yay « Agy() - £ flxces - Hy) (y(etr) -p Jat seen eee eeeeeeee (2) where x(t) and y(t) are the signals from the lower and the upper probes respectively. A time delay r, can be obtained by noting the time shift at the peak of the cross cofiélogram. The average bubble velocity is calculated by dividing the distance between probes by the time delay Tmax: The bubble velocity can also be obtained from the cross-spectral density function (CSDF). The CSDF of the two signals is obtained from the Fourier transform of the NCCF G62) = 2 Jao exp(-J2REr) Or ee eeeeeeeeeeee @) and GyC£) = GLE) = 4 Qg(£) ... where Cy (£) = 2 Fanon cos (2nfr)drS. L. P. Lee and H. I. de Lasa 533 QE) = 2 fat SinQQefr)dr oo oceccccceeeseseeeeeee (6) 0 and Gy(£) = tan (Qy(E)/Cyy(£)) qa) The time delay is obtained from r = 4,,(£)/2m£. Consequently, the average bubble velocity at frequency f can be calculated. MODEL DEVELOPMENT The following model was developed for the study of gas dispersion in TPFB by Lee and de Lasa (8). ae aiid ae Vg 7 5 Go rae, BRE ae aera att eta eta ate (8) with boundary conditions a &g06%y) Vz = Vgq (lg) veceeeeeee een ees (9) (deg) / (ar,)] ccc renee cence eee ee ences (10) Cy TO rece eee tee ete e teen eet e teeta eect anaes ay Equation 8 can be solved by separation of variables to give : fy Ey Mn FolGaty) exP(-L 2B agl/ V)eceeeeeeeeeeeeeees a2) where the coefficients A, are 1 J 7 ego(Xq) Jolanty ary anu 25 : Fy Tolenty) expC-[a 2 D zy1/ Vio) Sry where J, is the Bessel function of the first kind of order zero and are the positive zeros of J,(a,) + The gas hold-up, ¢,, and the average bubble velocity, V,, were measured at various axial and radial positions in the TPFB. The experiments were carried out at 0.225, 0.375 and 0.525 m above the distributor. At each axial level, the measurement were performed at nine radial positions, r, = 0, 40.25, +0.5, #0.75 and 40.875. Various operating conditions used in this investigation are listed in table 1. The gas hold-up was defined as the fraction of total measuring time when the probe was in contact with gas bubbles. The average bubble velocity was assessed through the cross-correlation technique. Once the required experimental data were collected, the dispersion coefficient, D, was obtained by the Marquardt method of optimization (10). Note that both the gas hold-up, ¢,, and the average bubble velocity, V,, were assessed through analyses of the same time series signals. The data analysis was performed to obtain the dispersion coefficient at each individually axial height under various operating conditions.SM FLUIDIZATION VI SIO! The average bubble velocities were assessed through the analyses of the cross correlation and the phase angle calculation. The results show good consistency between the two methods. In addition, the phase angle analysis indicates that the average bubble velocity is independent of bubble frequency. The results on bubble velocity shown here were obtained from the phase angle analysis The profiles of bubble rising velocities in the fluidized bed were found to be parabolic. Typical average bubble velocities in the TPFB are shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3. Since single gas injector was used, bubbles tond to rise in the centre of the column. A flow pattern of upward centre graft and downward annular flow was established. Therefore, bubbles in the centre received extra lift and those bubbles in the annular Yegion were hindered by the circulation. This phenomenon is more pronounced as gas velocity is increased. For example, bubble velocities in the centre region at low gas velocity were in the range of 40 to 60 cm/s, shown in Fig. 2. Bubble velocities of 80 to 100 cm/s were observed at high gas velocity in the case shown in Fig. 3. Furthermore, the radial bubble velocity profiles in the grid region are narrower than those at higher axial heights. Examples of the gas hold-up distribution in the fluidized bed are shown in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5. The gas hold-up profile was very steep in the grid region due to the jet effect. Most of the gas bubbles were found in che centre of the column in the range of r, = £0.25. The gas hold-up decreased sharply to a very low level at midway, r, - 40.5, and very few bubbles were observed from there to the wall. At higher axial positions, the gas hold-up profiles broadened from delta to parabolic. In any case, near zero gas hold-up was observed close to che wall of the column. This confirmed the boundary condition at r, = 1 in Eq.(11). The gas hold-up profiles were found to be symmetric although a little imbalance vas observed in the grid region. The relationship between the gas dispersion coefficient and the dimensionless bed height are shown in Fig 6 to Fig. 8. The dispersion coefficient was quite large near the grid and decreased gradually as the axial height increased. The standard deviations of gas hold-ups calculated from the dispersion model are listed in table 1 for experiments performed under various operating conditions. Some examples of model estimations in comparison with experimental data are shown in Fig. 4 and Fig.5. The model prediction matches quite well with the experimental data The values of gas dispersion coefficient in the present study are higher than those obtained in fluidized beds with multiple injectors (Lee and ge Lasa (8)). Since the injectors were not far apart (6.7 em separation), the dispersion effect was diminished by the interference between injectors. Furthermore, the interference increased with the axial height due to the conical projections of the injectors. Therefore, the dispersion coefficient decrease rapidly with axial height in multiple injector system.