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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Vladimir Zivkovic
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
Knowledge of the hydrodynamic character of micro-packed beds (mPBs) is critical to understanding pumping power requirements and their performance in various applications, including those where heat and mass transfer are involved. The report here details use of smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) based simulation of fluid flow on models of mPBs derived from X-ray microtomography to predict the hydrodynamic character of the beds as a function of the bed-to-particle diameter ratio over the range . It is shown that the permeability of the mPBs decreases in a non-linear but monotonic manner with this ratio to a plateau beyond that corresponded to the value predicted by the Ergun equation. This permeability variation was reasonably well-represented by the model of Foumeny (Intnl. J. Heat Mass Transfer, 36, 536, 1993), which was developed using macroscale packed beds of varying bed-to-particle diameter ratios. Five other correlations similarly determined using macroscale beds did not match at all well the SPH results here. The flow field within the mPBs varied in an oscillatory manner with radial position (i.e. channelling occurred at multiple radial positions) due to a similar variation in the porosity. This suggests that use of performance models (e.g. for heat and mass transfer) derived for macroscale beds may not be suitable for mPBs. The SPH-based approach here may well form a suitable basis for predicting such behaviour, however.
Author(s): Kashani MN, Elekaei H, Zivkovic V, Zhang H, Biggs MJ
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Chemical Engineering Science
Year: 2016
Volume: 145
Pages: 71-79
Print publication date: 12/05/2016
Online publication date: 08/02/2016
Acceptance date: 02/02/2016
Date deposited: 12/02/2016
ISSN (print): 0009-2509
ISSN (electronic): 1873-4405
Publisher: Elsevier
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2016.02.003
DOI: 10.1016/j.ces.2016.02.003
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