CFD-based analysis of the wall effect on the pressure drop in packed beds with moderate tube/particle diameter ratios in the laminar flow regime

In this work, the influence of the confining walls on pressure drop in packed beds is studied numerically for moderate tube/particle diameter ratios. Two different configuration types are investigated, a regular type and an irregular one. The regular configurations follow the atomic body-centered cubic and face-centered cubic structure in ideal crystals, whereas the modified ballistic deposition method is employed to generate the irregular configurations. To validate the simulation results, four experimental pressure drop correlations are used, namely by Ergun (1952) [1], by Carman (1937) [2], by Zhavoronkov et al. (1949) [3] and by Reichelt (1972) [4]. Simulation results for the regular configurations are in a good agreement with the Carman correlation. For the irregular configurations, which are closer to real packed beds, agreement with the correlations of Zhavoronkov et al. (1949) [3] and Reichelt (1972) [4] is better. This is explained by the fact that the latter two correlations take the wall effect into account. CFD simulations provide useful data on the flow field inside packed beds which can be used for the improvement and further optimization of the design and operation of packed bed reactors.