Effects of temperature on local two-phase flow structure in bubbling and turbulent fluidized beds of FCC particles

A novel high temperature optical fiber probe has been developed to study the effects of bed temperature on the local two-phase flow structure in a pilot scale fluidized bed of the FCC particles with bed temperatures ranging from 25degreesC to 420degreesC, covering both the bubbling and turbulent fluidization regimes. The results show that fluidization is enhanced and fluctuations of the local two-phase flow structure become more intense with increasing bed temperature. At constant superficial gas velocities, the averaged local particle concentration, the dense phase fraction and particle concentration in the dense phase decrease with increasing bed temperature, whereas both the frequency of the dilute/dense phase cycle and the ratio of the dilute phase duration to the dense phase duration increase. In addition, the effects of temperature on the dilute phase depend on superficial gas velocity. The conventional two-phase models fail to predict these changes of the local flow structure with temperature, which may be explained by the fact that the role of interparticle forces is neglected at different bed temperatures. Indeed, fluidization behaviors of the FCC particles tested increasingly shift from typical Geldart A towards B with increasing temperature due to a decrease of the interparticle attractive forces and a simultaneous increase of interparticle repulsive forces. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.