Fluidization: Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

A quick dip into the open literature concerning fluidization quickly leaves one with a headache. The open literature is rife with empirical correlations relating pressure drop to fluid flow, material bed height, material particle diameter, and density differences. The same literature is also replete with “rules of thumb” for the onset of fluidization and for the various stages of fluidization. Undoubtedly, companies employing fluidized bed technology have similar documentation describing their own correlations and their own “rules of thumb”.

In this presentation, we derive the pertinent relations for describing fluidization using Dimensional Analysis. We also discuss scaling fluidized processes from laboratory-sized equipment to commercial-sized equipment.