Characterization and CFD-modeling of the hydrodynamics of a prismatic spouted bed apparatus

Recently the importance of spouted bed technology has significantly increased in the context of drying processes as well as granulation, agglomeration or coating processes. However, the understanding of the complex interactions within and between the single phases is still low and needs further improvement. Several research groups apply both continuum as well as discrete element simulations to understand the hydrodynamics of the spouting process. This work focuses on the simulation of the hydrodynamic behavior of a prismatic spouted bed apparatus by applying the Euler/Euler continuum approach in the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package FLUENT 6.2. The simulations are validated by experiments. Calculated and experimental (by PIV-measurements) obtained velocity vector maps, as well as measured and calculated gas phase pressure fluctuations over the entire bed are compared. The aim of this work is to improve the understanding of the hydrodynamics of the spouting process. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.