CFD-DEM study of impacts of the porous distributor medium on fluidization characteristics of a 2D-fluidized bed

Gas-solid bubbling fluidized beds are widely used in chemical, energy, construction, and other industrial fields due to their excellent fluidization performance. 2D-fluidized beds with planar rectangular columns of finite thickness are widely used in fluidized bed studies, and it is essential for understanding the hydrodynamics of gas-particle systems. Moreover, the distributor (porous medium) at the bottom of the bed has a crucial influence on the fluidization performance of the 2D-fluidized bed. In this work, the fluidization mechanism and gas-solid dynamic characteristics of the fluidized bed under three porous media are studied by CFD-DEM coupled with the porous medium model, and the accuracy of numerical simulation is verified by a high-speed photography experiment. Results show that with the increase in the flow resistance of the porous medium, the average and standard deviation of the bubble diameter decrease, and the time and position of particles in the dead zone to participate in the core-annular flow advance. At a low fluidization velocity, the dead zone in the bed can be considerably reduced by increasing the flow resistance. & COPY; 2023 Chinese Society of Particuology and Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.