Studying local liquid velocity in liquid–solid packed bed using the newly developed X-ray DIR technique

Combination of X-ray Digital Industrial Radiography (DIR) and Particle Tracking Velocimetry (PTV) techniques for local liquid velocity measurement (VLL) has been newly developed and successfully applied for trickle bed reactor (TBR). The technique was validated against newly developed fiber optical probe technique. This work attempts to highlight the applicability of this newly developed technique on a liquid–solid packed bed reactor. In this work, liquid was represented by water and solids were represented by EPS beads. The EPS beads were chosen because of its low density property. Three superficial liquid velocities (VSL) were applied to the system. The experiment was replicated four times. The digital industrial radiography (DIR) consists of a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) digital detector and X-ray source. Results of this work suggest that the technique has been successfully applied and comparable with previous work that has been done in the literature. It also suggests that there will be a maximum measurable interstitial liquid velocity when it travel inside the packed bed. The measured VLL can have a maximum range that is between 4 and 4.7 times that of its VSL. For VSL=0.42±±2%, the VLL-Max is in between 1.7 cm/s and 1.9 cm/s, VSL=0.84±±2%, the VLL-Max is in between 3.6 cm/s and 4.0 cm/s, and for VSL=1.11±±2%, the VLL-Max is in between 4.3 cm/s and 4.8 cm/s.