Studying the Effect of Vertical Internals on the Radial Pressure Drop in Fluidized Bed Using Probe-Differential Pressure Transducer

In this work, the effect of vertical internals on the radial pressure drop in fluidized beds has been studied by varying the parameters such as superficial gas velocity, solid particles type, solid particles density, internal size and radial position inside the bed (r/R). The radial pressure drop has been measured using probe-differential pressure transducer. The internals size are 0.5 and 1 inch in diameter with cross sectional area of 25% of the column. Two different types of solid particles have been used, glass beads (2500 kg/m³) and aluminum oxide (3900 kg/m³), both solid particles are Geldard B type and 350 μm in diameter. The experiments were conducted in a plexiglass column of 0.14 m internal diameter, 1.8 m height and 0.35 m static bed height. The radial pressure drop in glass beads bed was found to decrease with both sizes of internals, thus resulting in lower power consumption. The reduction in radial pressure drop in case of glass beads was increase with increasing the internals size and it was high near the wall and less toward the center. In the case of Aluminum oxide, the radial pressure drop was found to decrease with 1 inch internals and increase with 0.5 inch internals due to the reduction in spaces between the internals and the natural of the aluminum oxide solid particles. The reduction in radial pressure drop for the case of aluminum oxide (1 inch internals) was almost the same for the whole radial positions. In general, the reduction in pressure drop decrease with increasing superficial gas velocity for both solid particles.