Comparison between the new mechanistic and the chaos scale-up methods for gas-solid fluidized beds

The chaotic scale-up approach by matching the Kolmogorov entropy (EK) proposed by Schouten et al. (1996) was assessed in two geometrically similar gas-solid fluidized bed columns of 0.14 and 0.44 m diameter. We used four conditions of our validated new mechanistic scale-up method based on matching the radial profiles of gas holdup where the local dimensionless hydrodynamic parameters were similar as measured by advanced measurement techniques. These experimental conditions were used to evaluate the validity of the chaotic scale-up method, which were selected based on our new mechanistic scale-up methodology. Pressure gauge transducer measurements at the wall and inside the bed at various local radial locations and at three axial heights were used to estimate KE. It was found that the experimental conditions with similar or close radial profiles of the Kolmogorov entropy and with similar or close radial profiles of the gas holdup achieve the similarity in local dimensionless hydrodynamic parameters, and vice versa.