Adjustment of drag coefficient correlations in three dimensional CFD simulation of gas–solid bubbling fluidized bed

Fluidized beds have been widely used in power generation and in chemical, biochemical, and petroleum industries. 3D simulation of commercial scale fluidized beds has been computationally impractical due to the required memory and processor speeds. In this study, 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics simulation of a gas–solid bubbling fluidized bed is performed to investigate the effect of using different inter-phase drag models. The drag correlations of Richardon and Zaki, Wen–Yu, Gibilaro, Gidaspow, Syamlal–O’Brien, Arastoopour, RUC, Di Felice, Hill Koch Ladd, Zhang and Reese, and adjusted Syamlal are reviewed using a multiphase Eulerian–Eulerian model to simulate the momentum transfer between phases. Furthermore, a method has been proposed to adjust the Di Felice drag model in a three dimensional domain based on the experimental value of minimum fluidization velocity as a calibration point. Comparisons are made with both a 2D Cartesian simulation and experimental data. The experiments are performed on a Plexiglas rectangular fluidized bed consisting of spherical glass beads and ambient air as the gas phase. Comparisons were made based on solid volume fractions, expansion height, and pressure drop inside the fluidized bed at different superficial gas velocities. The results of the proposed drag model were found to agree well with experimental data. The effect of restitution coefficient on three dimensional prediction of bed height is also investigated and an optimum value of restitution coefficient for modeling fluidized beds in a bubbling regime has been proposed. Finally sensitivity analysis is performed on the grid interval size to obtain an optimum mesh size with the objective of accuracy and time efficiency.