Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
6592132 | Chemical Engineering Science | 2013 | 14 Pages |
Abstract
Turbulent suspensions of monodisperse coarse glass particles of 1 and 3Â mm diameter in water were numerically simulated at their 'just-suspended' speed Njs and at speeds above it up to 2Njs, in a vessel agitated by a down-pumping pitched-blade turbine. The solid concentration was in the range 5.2-20Â wt%. The numerical results are compared to detailed 3-D distributions of the three local phase velocity components and solid concentration obtained by an accurate technique of positron emission particle tracking (PEPT). The predictions of flow number and mean velocity profiles for both phases are generally excellent both at Njs and above it. Predictions of the spatial solids distribution are good except near the base of the vessel and underneath the agitator where they are largely overestimated, however, they improve significantly with increasing solid concentration. At Njs and above it, the liquid velocity field is not significantly affected by the presence of solids up to â¼10Â wt%. At higher concentrations, however, some significant reductions in liquid velocity occur near the impeller and along the wall of the vessel. At Njs, there are wide variations in the spatial distribution of the inter-phase slip velocity. The largest total slip velocities are of considerable magnitude, on the order of â¼0.10utip. Increasing the agitation speed up to 2Njs, reduces the normalised slip velocities significantly. Results also indicate that there is no impact on the distributions of turbulent kinetic energy and Kolmogorov length scale. The eddy dissipation rate, however, is increasingly suppressed as solid concentration increases at Njs.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Chemical Engineering (General)
Authors
Li Liu, Mostafa Barigou,