Solid-Fluid Operations

Lecture General expressions for

No. 14: flow through packed
beds -Ergun Equation

Prof. S. K. Majumder
Chemical Engineering Department, Room No. 107
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
Guwahati-781039, India. Phone: +913612582265 (O)
Email: skmaju@iitg.ac.in ; skmaju@gmail.com
https://www.iitg.ac.in/chemeng/skm/home
Present Lecture Includes:

 Derivation
of general
expressions for flow
through packed beds -
Ergun Equation
Production of syngas from
natural gas

BPCL, for separation of

naththa in Kochi Refinery DuPont-Isotherming
hydroprocessing
Streamline and turbulent flow
(Ergun Equation (Ergun, 1952)
 Practically packed beds are randomly packed with irregular size
particles having constant sphericity, s .
 To calculate frictional pressure–drop, actual flow channels are replaced
with parallel cylindrical conduits of constant cross–section.
 The frictional pressure–drop in the packed bed occurs due viscous
effects and inertia effects. At high Reynolds number, inertial effects
prevail, whereas the viscous effects are important at low Reynolds
number. In general,

f refers here frictional Turkish chemical engineer Sabri Ergun

 For a packed–bed. It is proposed that

= Wall shear-stress in laminar-turbulent flow

= wall shear-stress in laminar flow + wall shear-stress in tubular flow

K1 and K2 are
two empirical constants

If Re*p < 10 If Re*p > 10

This part dominates this part dominates
 Since

Vp = volume of one particle; ua = actual or average fluid velocity

u = superficial fluid velocity; f = void fraction of fluid; S0 = Cross section area of
;
packed bed; As = total surface area of all particles; Sp = Surface area of single
particle; p = Sphericity of particle
Therefore
 Substituting Drag force as

We can get
 Based on the experimental observation,

Setting K1 = 150/36 and K2 = 1.75/6, We can express

Or Ergun Equation

If Re*p < 10 If Re*p > 10

This part dominates this part dominates
 Defining the friction factor for a packed–bed

Therefore from

If Rep <<1 (viscous effect dominates), (~Kozeny-Carman Equation)

If Rep >> 1000 (inertial effect dominates), (Blake-Plummer Equation)

Ergun equation is used to calculate pressure drop across packed bed of particle size
less than 25 mm
 Example
 Problem:: A packed bed of solid  Solution: (a) Mass of the solid
particles of density 2500 kg/m3,
occupies a depth of 1 m in a vessel of
cross-sectional area 0.04 m2. The mass of
solids in the bed is 50 kg and the
surface-volume mean diameter of the
particles is 1 mm. A liquid of density 800  Use the Ergun equation to
kg/m3 and viscosity 0.002 Pas flows estimate the pressure drop across
upwards through the bed, which is the bed at this flow rate:
restrained at its upper surface.
 (a) Calculate the voidage
(volume fraction occupied by
voids) of the bed.
 (b) Calculate the pressure drop
across the bed when the volume
flow rate of liquid is 1.44 m3/h.
 Example
 Problem: A packed bed of solids of  Solution: (a) Knowing the mass of particles
density 2000 kg/m3 occupies a depth in the bed, the density of the particles and
of 0.6 m in a cylindrical vessel of inside the volume of the bed, the bed voidage
diameter 0.1m. The mass of solids in may be calculated:
the bed is 5 kg and the surface-
volume mean diameter of the
particles is 300 μm. Water (density 1000
kg/m3 and viscosity 0.001 Pas) flows
upwards through the bed.
 Use the Ergun equation to estimate the
 a) What is the voidage of the relationship between pressure drop across
packed bed? the bed and superficial liquid velocity:
 b) Calculate the superficial liquid
velocity at which the frictional
pressure drop across the bed is
4130 Pa.
 Problem
 Problem: A gas absorption tower of diameter  Solution:
2 m contains ceramic Raschig rings randomly
Superficial gas velocity (u) = Q/A = 1.91 m/s
packed to a height of 5 m. Air containing a
small proportion of sulphur dioxide passes
upwards through the absorption tower at a
flow rate of 6 m3/s. The viscosity and density of
the gas may be taken as 1.80 x 10-5 Pas and
1.2 kg/m3 respectively. Surface area of
ceramic raschig rings per unit volume of
packed bed, SB = 190 m2/m3. Voidage of
randomly packed bed = 0.71
 (a) Calculate the diameter, dp, of a sphere
with the same surface-volume ratio as the
Raschig rings.
 (b) Calculate the frictional pressure drop
across the packing in the tower.
Further reading......
Text Books:
 J.F. Richardson, J.H. Harker, J.R. Backhurst, Coulson and
Richardson's Chemical Engineering Volume 2 - Particle
Technology and Separation Processes (5th Edition)
 Richard C. Flagan, John H. Seinfeld, Fundamentals of Air
Pollution Engineering
 W. L. McCabe, J. Smith and P. Harriot, Unit Operations of
Chemical Engineering, 6th Ed., McGraw - Hill, International
Edition, 2001.
Reference Books:
 Membrane Filtration: A Problem-Solving Approach with MATLAB
Greg Foley, Cambridge University Press, 2013.
 Thank You

Next Lecture:

Two-phase flow through packed

bed

For any queries:

Please Contact: skmaju@iitg.ac.in