CFD study of solids concentration in a fluidised-bed coater with variation of atomisation air pressure

The solids volume fraction inside a tapered fluidised bed coater was simulated with the use of an Eulerian computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model with atomisation nozzle sub-model. The drag force, describing momentum transfer between the gas and solid phases was calculated using the drag model proposed by [1]. In order to account for the particle size distribution of the fluidised solid materials, a 4-phase Eulerian model was used. The model-predicted results for different atomisation air pressures were verified using published experimental data in It was shown that the model proved to be highly sensitive to changes in the fluidisation air flow rate with regard to the model-predicted solids volume distribution. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.