Fluidized Bed With Gas-Air Combustion

Fred Kang

Dear all,

I am going to model a fluidized bed incinerator, which is used to burn off the trace amount of solvent on solid particle surface. The case description are as below: (1) There is a gaseous combustion: natural gas is introduced to the fluidization zone, reacts with the fluidization air supplied through an air distributor. (2) The mass fraction of the solvent on the particle surface is negligible, so that we can forget its impact on any aspects of modeling. (3) The volume fraction of the discrete phase is extremely low (<1.0%). The round particles are 0.5~1.0 mm in diameter. (4) The vessel for fluidization is 1.0 m in diameter and 4.0 m in height. The air distributor is installed at the lower part of the vessel.

I read the FLUENT manual yesterday, and found that both the Eulerian model and the DPM model are of option. For general fluidization beds, Eulerian model is preferred. But, it seems there is no way to count heat transfer and combustion in Eulerian model, which is fatal to this application. For the DPM, I barely know the expense to run it for tracking so many particles.

I expect your suggestion/experience/thought to direct the modeling of such a fluidization bed with gas-air combustion attached. I appreciate your time and expertise.

Fred