CFD PREDICTION OF BUBBLES BEHAVIOUR IN 2-DIMENSIONAL GAS-SOLID FLUIDIZED BEDS

In recent years the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is significantly increasing to simulate multi-phase flows. It is invariably emphasized that a necessary step towards the development of reliable fully predictive CFD models is an extensive experimental validation of the simulation results. This work in particular focuses on the CFD simulation of a lab-scale 2D fluidized bed and the relevant experiments, in order to validate the prediction capability of the used codes and models. It must be emphasized that both experimental and computational quantitative data have been obtained by means of an original Digital Image Analysis Technique, that allows coherent comparison of computational and experimental data. Due to the great importance of bubbles dynamic in affecting the fluidization quality, this work analyzes the capability of the CFD simulations in predicting the fluctuating behaviour of fluidized beds, by means of frequency analysis of bubbles related phenomena.