TITLE OF EXPERIMENT: FIXED AND FLUIDIZED BED

AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF EXPERIMENT : TO INVESTIATE TE

CARACTERISTICS ASSOCIATED WIT WATER FLOWIN VERTICALLY
UPWARDS TROUH A BED OF GRANULAR MATERIAL AS FOLLOWS:

a) To determine the head loss (pressure drop)

b) To verify the equation.
c) To observe the unset of fluidization and differentiate between the
characteristics of a fixed bed and a fluidized bed.
d) To compare the predicted onset of fluidization with the measured head loss.

NAME: NZEI FAITH NKECHI

MATRICULATION NUMBER: ENG1707215

SERIAL NUMBER : 59

GROUP NUMBER: A4

EXPERIMENT NUMBER : 03

COURSE CODE : CHE302

LEVEL: 300 L

INSTRUCTOR’S NAME :

DATE OF EXPERIMENT:
 SUMMARY

The experiment is carried out to investigate the pressure drop at

minimum fluidized velocity and to verify the theoretical pressure drop using
Ergun Equation. In this experiment, air was allowed to pass through a column
filled with bed of alumina particles. When the upward drag force exerted by
the air on particle is equal to the apparent weight of particles in the bed,
fluidization starts to occur. The effect of air flow rate on pressure drop is
observed. The air flow rate is varied and different column height is obtained.
This data was used to calculate a series of theoretical pressure drop across the
bed column with the aid of Ergun Equation. Besides, at different air flow rate,
different pressure drop which were shown by the fluidized packed column were
also observed. A graph of theoretical pressure drop versus airflow rate, was
plotted. The theoretical pressure drop is compared with experimental pressure
drop at minimum fluidized velocity by computing the percentage
difference between theoretical and experimental pressure drop values.
INTRODUCTION

A fluidized bed is a physical phenomenon occurring when a quantity of

a solid particulate substance (usually present in a holding vessel) is placed under
appropriate conditions to cause a solid/fluid mixture to behave as a fluid. This is
usually achieved by the introduction of pressurized fluid through the particulate
medium. This results in the medium then having many properties and
characteristics of normal fluids, such as the ability to free-flow under gravity, or to
be pumped using fluid type technologies.
The resulting phenomenon is called fluidization. Fluidized beds are used for
several purposes, such as fluidized bed reactors (types of chemical reactors), solids
separation, fluid catalytic cracking, fluidized bed combustion, heat or mass transfer
or interface modification, such as applying a coating onto solid items. This
technique is also becoming more common in aquaculture for the production of
shellfish in integrated multi-trophic aquaculture systems.

Properties
A fluidised bed consists of fluid-solid mixture that exhibits fluid-like properties.
As such, the upper surface of the bed is relatively horizontal, which is analogous to
hydrostatic behavior. The bed can be considered to be a heterogeneous mixture of
fluid and solid that can be represented by a single bulk density.
Furthermore, an object with a higher density than the bed will sink, whereas an
object with a lower density than the bed will float, thus the bed can be considered
to exhibit the fluid behavior expected of Archimedes' principle. As the "density",
(actually the solid volume fraction of the suspension), of the bed can be altered by
changing the fluid fraction, objects with different densities comparative to the bed
can, by altering either the fluid or solid fraction, be caused to sink or float.
In fluidised beds, the contact of the solid particles with the fluidisation medium (a
gas or a liquid) is greatly enhanced when compared to packed beds. This behavior
in fluidised combustion beds enables good thermal transport inside the system and
good heat transfer between the bed and its container. Similarly to the good heat
transfer, which enables thermal uniformity analogous to that of a well mixed gas,
the bed can have a significant heat-capacity whilst maintaining a homogeneous
temperature field.

Application
Fluidized beds are used as a technical process which has the ability to promote
high levels of contact between gases and solids. In a fluidised bed a characteristic
set of basic properties can be utilised, indispensable to modern process and
chemical engineering, these properties include:

 Extremely high surface area contact between fluid and solid per unit bed
volume
 High relative velocities between the fluid and the dispersed solid phase.
 High levels of intermixing of the particulate phase.
 Frequent particle-particle and particle-wall collisions.
Taking an example from the food processing industry: Fluidized beds are used to
accelerate freezing in some individually quick frozen (IQF) tunnel freezers. These
Fluidized bed tunnels are typically used on small food products like peas, shrimp
or sliced vegetables, and may use cryogenic or vapor-compression refrigeration.
The fluid used in Fluidized beds may also contain a fluid of catalytic type; that's
why it is also used to catalyse the chemical reaction and also to improve the rate of
reaction.
Fluidized beds are also used for efficient bulk drying of materials. Fluidized bed
technology in dryers increases efficiency by allowing for the entire surface of the
drying material to be suspended and therefore exposed to the air. This process can
also be combined with heating or cooling, if necessary, according to the
specifications of the application.
Multiphase flow and fluidization of fine particles has a wide application in the
industry. The industrial fluidized bed process ranges from simple applications like
drying, cooling, pneumatic transport of powders, etc. to more complex chemical
reactors such as FCC for oil cracking, CVD coating of solids in a fluidized bed,
combustion or gasification of coal or biomass, etc. The list of the fluidized bed
application is long, along with the challenges the industry is facing with
fluidization of such fine powders. Understanding the physical properties and flow
characteristic of particles is key when designing and operating such fluidized bed
units. In this session, the selected papers will mainly address the approach and
tools used to understand the particle flow behavior in an industrial process and also
the steps taken to address and troubleshoot the industrial scale problems.
This experiment was carried out to investigate the characteristics associated with
water flowing vertically upwards through a bed of granular material as follows:
a) To determine the head loss (pressure drop)
b) To verify the equation
c) To observe the unset of fluidization and differentiate between the
characteristics of a fixed bed and a fluidized bed.
d) To compare the predicted onset of fluidization with the measured head loss.

THEORY

THEORY
When a liquid or a gas is passed at very low velocity up through a bed of solid
particles, the particles do not move ,and the pressure drop is given by the Ergun
equation. If the fluid velocity is steadily increased ,the pressure drop and the drag
on individual particles increase,and eventually the particles start to move and
become suspended in the fluid. The terms “fluidization” and “fluidized bed” are
used to describe the condition of fully suspended particles,since the suspension
behaves like a dense fluid.
Fluidized beds are used extensively in the chemical process industries,
particularly for the cracking of high-molecular-weight petroleum fractions.Such
beds inherently possess excellent heat transfer and mixing characteristics.These are
devices in which a large surface area of contact between a liquid and a gas ,or a
solid and a gas or liquid is obtained for achieving rapid mass and heat transfer and
for chemical reactions. The fluidized bed is one of the best known contacting
methods used in the processing industry, for instance in oil refinery plants. Among
its chief advantages are that the particles are well mixed leading to low temperature
gradients, they are suitable for both small and large scale operations and they allow
continuous processing. There are many well established operations that utilize this
technology, including cracking and reforming of hydrocarbons, coal carbonization
and gasification, ore roasting, Fisher-Tropsch synthesis, coking, aluminum
production, melamine production, and coating preparations. Nowadays, you will
find fluidized beds used in catalyst regeneration, solid-gas reactors, combustion of
coal, roasting of ores, drying, and gas adsorption operations The application of
fluidization is also well recognized in nuclear engineering as a unit operation for
example, in uranium extraction, nuclear fuel fabrication, reprocessing of fuel and
waste disposal.

When a fluid is admitted at the bottom of a packed bed of solids at a low flow
rate, it passes upward through bed without causing any particle motion. If the
particles are quite small, flow in the channels between the particles will be laminar
and the pressure drop across the bed will be proportional to the superficial velocity
Vo and for turbulent situations, pressure drop across the bed increase nonlinearly
with the increase in the superficial velocity. As the velocity is gradually increased,
the pressure drop increases, but particles do not move and the bed height remains
the same. At a certain velocity, the pressure drop across the bed counterbalances
the force of gravity on the particles or the weight of the bed,and any other further
increase in velocity causes the particles to move and the true fluidization begins.
For a high enough fluid velocity, the friction force is large enough to lift the
particles. This represents the onset of fluidization Once the bed is fluidized
pressure drop across the bed remains constant,but the bed height continues to
increase with increasing flow.
 Minimum fluidization velocity: To better understand fluidization of a particle
bed, it is necessary to determine what range of flow rates allow fluidization, and
also, what flow rates will begin to carry the particles out the top of the particle
chamber. It is necessary to determine a minimum flow rate allowing the particles
to become fluidized, the minimum fluidization velocity (Vmf). This is the
minimum superficial fluid velocity required for the fluidization to occur. It can be
obtained by setting the pressure drop across the bed equal to the weight of the bed
per unit area of cross section,allowing for the buoyant force of the displaced
fluid: 
At incipient fluidization ,   is the minimum void fraction   
Erguns equation for pressure drop in packed beds can be applied to the point of
incipient fluidization and minimum fluidization velocity can be obtained by
solving the resultant quadratic equation.
The Ergun equation can be used to describe the drag exerted on a particle bed
by the fluid flow. The Ergun equation is

     --------(1)

fp is the friction factor for a packed bed called as modified friction factor.
Where

     --------(2)

With  = the pressure drop

L= the height of the bed
=the fluid viscosity
=void fraction
V0 = the fluid superficial velocity
Dp =the particle diameter
= the density of the fluid
 = sphericity of the particle.

By rearranging and then setting

The Ergun equation at the oint of incipient fluidization is

Where  = Minimum void fraction ( before fluidization)

Vmf= Minimum fluidization velocity

The above equation is a quadratic in , where Vmf , the minimum fluidization
velocity.

Types of fluidization
The equations derived for minimum fluidization velocity apply to liquids as
well as to gases, but beyond this velocity, the appearance of beds fluidized with
liquids or gases is often quite different. Liquid fluidized beds usually exhibit “
particulate fluidization “ and the gas fluidized beds exhibit” bubbling fluidization”(
Refer Unit Operations of Chemical Engineering by McCabe and Smith).

The following material is a condensation of that chapter as it relates to the

experiment at hand. There are three areas of interest to us: (1) Relationship
between the pressure drop and the flow rate; (2) Minimum fluidization
velocity, and; (3) Behavior of the expanded bed.
(1) Relationship between pressure drop and flow rate
The flow of a fluid, either liquid or gas, through a static packed bed can be
described in a
quantitative manner by defining a bed friction factor, fp, and a particle Reynolds
number, NRe,p, as
follows:
r e 
fe



1
2
3
VL
pg D
f
o
csp
p Similar to 7.19 in M & H. (1)
Note that this equation cannot be derived directly by extrapolating the case of flow
through a circular
conduit since friction factor defined in both cases is different (see McCabe and
Smith 4th edition, pg.
137)
NRe,p 
Vo Dp

(2)
2
where
P = pressure drop across the bed
L = bed depth or length
gc = conversion constant (= unity if SI units are used)
Dp = particle diameter
= fluid density
= bed porosity or void fraction
Vo = superficial fluid velocity
= fluid viscosity
s = sphericity
The friction factor and the Reynolds number are dimensionless. Some typical
sphericity factors are
given in McCabe, Smith and Harriott (p. 928, Table 28.1).
For laminar flow, where only viscous drag forces come into play, NRe,p 20,
experimental
data may be correlated by means of the Kozeny-Carman equation:
ps
pN
f
f
e
Re,
150 (1 )
Similar to 7.17 MS & H (3)
Note: According to Yates ("Fundamentals of Fluidized-bed Chemical Processes,"
by J. G. Yates,
Published by Butterworths, 1983, p. 7-8) the factor of 150 was originally given by
Carman as 180 for
the case of laminar flow. Ergun later suggested a better value was 150 when the
particles are greater
than about 150 m in diameter.
For highly turbulent flow where inertial forces predominate, NRe,p 1000,
experimental results
may instead be correlated in terms of the Blake-Plummer equation:
fp 1.75 Similar to 7.20 MS & H (4)
While both equations (3) and (4) have a sound theoretical basis, Ergun empirically
found that
the friction factor could be described for all values of the Reynolds number by
simply adding the righthand
sides of equations (3) and (4). Thus:








1.75
150(1 )
Re, p s
pN
f
f
e
Similar to (7 - 22) MS&H (5)
(2) Minimum fluidization velocity
3
At a sufficiently high flow rate, the total drag force on the solid particles
constituting the bed
becomes equal to the net gravitational force and the bed becomes fluidized. For
this situation a force
balance yields:
pA LA 1M p g / gc M p g / gcp
(6)
where
M = void fraction at the minimum fluidization velocity
A = cross-sectional area of the bed
p = particle density
g = gravitational constant
M = total mass of packing.
This is Eq. 7.48, 7.49 MS&H . The superficial fluid velocity at which the
fluidization of the bed
commences is called the incipient or minimum fluidization velocity, V0M. The
incipient fluidization
velocity may be determined by combining equations (1), (3), and (6) with the
following result [Eq.
(7.52) MS&H] for the case of small particles and consequent, NRe<1:
V0M 
g p M
3 s
2 Dp
2
150 1M (7)
This equation is the basis for some empirical equations found in the literature. The
terms can be
grouped as follows:
V0M 
M
3 s
2
150 1 M 
g p Dp
2

(8)
The first factor contains the sphericity of the particles and the bed porosity at the
point of incipient
fluidization. Neither of these factors is usually known with a high degree of
accuracy. If spheres are
assumed s 1and a reasonable value of voidage, say M 0.4 , then the
first factor is 0.00071. The
factor is quite sensitive to M. For example, if M 0.413, then the factor is
0.0008.
One investigator, [D. Geldhart, "Types of Fluidization," Powder Technology, 7
(1973), 285-
292; Geldhart and Abrahamsen, Powder Technology, 19 (1978), 133-136] simply
determined the first
factor from his data and actually found 0.0008 to be the best value; that is, he
reported the following
correlation:
V0M 0.0008
g p Dp
2

(9)
Behavior of the expanded bed
4
The expansion of fluidized beds is discussed in the text on Pages 170-173. The
treatment to be
used here is slightly different. For fluid velocities exceeding the incipient
fluidization velocity, the bed
expands. The porosity, , of an expanded bed may be related to the superficial
fluid velocity, Vo , by
means of an empirical relation suggested by Richardson and Zaki (1,2):
Vo
ut
n (10)
where ut is the terminal velocity of a spherical particle in a fluidizing medium (3).
The exponent, n,
depends on the flow conditions -- that is, on the Reynolds number. Thus:
NRe,p 0.2 n4.65 (11)
0.2 NRe,p 1.0 n 4.35NRe, p
0 .03 (12)
1NRe,p 500 n 4.45NRe, p
0.1 (13)
NRe,p 500 n 2.39 (14)
Because the terminal velocity, ut, is a constant for a given particle, it can be seen
that Equation
(10) above is essentially the same as the empirical equation in the text; namely Eq.
(7.59) MS&H.
The void fraction of the expanded bed, , is related to that at incipient fluidization
by the
following equation:
LLM
1M
1
(7-58 MS&H)
where LM and M are the bed height and void fraction at incipient fluidization,
and L is the measured
height of the expanded bed. Therefore, since LM and M are known, can be
calculated from the
measured height, L, of the expanded bed.
In Equations (11)-(14) the Reynolds number is based on the particle diameter, Dp,
and the terminal
velocity, ut. Therefore it is necessary to know the terminal velocity. By means of a
force balance it be
shown that the terminal velocity for spherical particles is:
ut
4Dp p g
3CD
(15, &.37 MS&H)
5
where CD denotes the drag coefficient. A graph of CD versus NRe,p is shown in
the text (Figure 7.6, p.
158). To find CD, you need to know ut so that NRe,p can be calculated. There are
two ways of doing
this: i) One could do this by trial-and-error. Thus, you could guess ut, calculate
NRe,p, look up CD on
the graph, and put the resulting value in Eq. (15). If the calculated value of ut did
not match the guess (it
surely wouldn't on the first try!), you would guess again. ii) We can also do this
without trial-and-error.
For this square both sides of Eq. (15) and utilize the definition of NRe,p (Eq. (2))
to obtain:
CDNRe, p
2
4Dp
3 p g
32 (16)
All parameters on the right are known. This suggests
 DESCRIPTION OF APPARATUS

DESCRIPTION OF APPARATUSS

All numerical references relate to figure 1

The equipment consists of a water circuit and an air circuit main field on a support

frame (1) and back board (2). The water circuit is located at the left-hand side and
the

air circuit is located at the right-hand side when looking from the front. The two

circuits are independent of each other and therefore may be operated separately or

together according to choice.

Water is drawn from a plastic sump tank (3) by a centrifugal pump (4), both
situated

at the rear of equipment. The pump delivers water to the base of the water test

column (7) via a flow control value (5) and a direct reading variable-area
flowmeter

(6). Having passed vertically upwards through the test column, the water
discharges
rearwards from the top of the column and return via a flexible overflow pipe {I.S)
lo

the sump tank for recycling. A drain lap (22) at the base of the sump tank allows
the

tank to be emptied. A lid on the sump tank keeps the contents clean. The water

pump is switched on or off using the mains switch (23) that is located above the

water flowmeter.

The base of the test column (8) incorporate; a sintered brass disk that supports the

particles inside the test column and helps lo distribute the water uniformly across

the .section of the test column.

The lest column (7) is circular in eross section (50mm) inside diameter)1 and

manufactured from clear acrylic to allow visualization of the bed of particles when

15 in operation. The test colunmn is mounted on top of a base plate (9) that is
common t

the Water and air columns. The test column can be removed easily for

emptying/cleaning by unscrewing the two knurled .screws (10). The test column is

scaled to the base plate by a sensible 'O ring. The height of the bed inside the test

column can tic measured directly on a scale (14) that is attached to the front of the

column.

The test column is provided with two pressures tapping's, located at the rear of the

column, that allow the pressure drop across the bed of particles lo be monitored.
The

pressure: tapping's in corporate sintered brass plugs to the bed material

Horn escaping. The pressure drop is measured using a differential water
manometer

(12) that is mounted adjacent to the test column. The manometer incorporates a

bleed screw (13) on the lop manifold and a Schrader value (12) on the bottom

manifold (connected via a lube al the rear to the top manifold) that are used to
adjust

the levels in the manometer. The levels can be raised by opening the bleed screw

(13). provided that the test column is filled with water, pump (27) connected to the

Schrader valve (12). The hand pump is stored at the rear of the equipment when
not

is use

Two samples of granular material are available. The samples are different sizes of

gla.ss beads (called balloting) that provide spherical granules of a regular size to

allow comparison of theory with practical results.

The two sizes of glass beads are as follows:

Type 11102/1. No 10, 210/325 micron with and average diameter of

267microns.

Type 11102/1, No. 8, 44/530 micron with an average diameter of485 microns.

It is suggested that the smaller beads arc used in the air column (to allow

fluidization) and the larger beads in the water column for initial use. The beads can

however be used in either column.

 Switch
Orange
Back Board

Water Manometer
Water test Column
Air test Column
Air Flow Control
Valve

Support Frame

Fig 1: Front View of the Fixed and Fluidized Bed

Flexible Overflow Pipe

Sump Tank

Air Compressor

Fig 2: Back View of the Fixed and Fluidized Bed

 PROCEDURE

The air column was filled to a height of 310mm with the coarse grade of ballotini,
then the air flow control valve was closed. We checked that there were no air
bubbles in the water manometer or the tubing connected to it. the air compressor
was switched on. The water flow rate in increments of 1L/min from 1L/min to
maximum flow rate was adjusted. At each setting the conditions were allowed to
stabilize then the height of the bed was recorded, the differential reading of the
manometer, state of bed, the flow rate and whether it is fixed or fluidized was also
recorded.

The particle density was determined by weighing a known volume of the ballotini.
RESULTS