Fast fluidization average solids concentration

The lean/gas phase convection contribution has received the least attention in the literature. Many models in fact assume it to be negligible in comparison to dense phase convection and set hl to be zero. Compared to experimental data, such an approach appears to be approximately valid for fast fluidized beds where average solid concentration is above 8% by volume. Measurements obtained by Ebert, Glicksman and Lints (1993) indicate that the lean phase convection can contribute up to 20% of total... 

The data of Fig. 20 also point out an interesting phenomenon—while the heat transfer coefficients at bed wall and bed centerline both correlate with suspension density, their correlations are quantitatively different. This strongly suggests that the cross-sectional solid concentration is an important, but not primary parameter. Dou et al. speculated that the difference may be attributed to variations in the local solid concentration across the diameter of the fast fluidized bed. They show that when the cross-sectional averaged density is modified by an empirical radial distribution to obtain local suspension densities, the heat transfer coefficient indeed than correlates as a single function with local suspension density. This is shown in Fig. 21 where the two sets of data for different radial positions now correlate as a single function with local mixture density. The conclusion is That the convective heat transfer coefficient for surfaces in a fast fluidized bed is determined primarily by the local two-phase mixture density (solid concentration) at the location of that surface, for any given type of particle. The early observed parametric effects of elevation, gas velocity, solid mass flux, and radial position are all secondary to this primary functional dependence. 

The above is a very condensed discussion of the hydrodynamic characteristics of fast fluidized beds. As presented below, heat transfer is strongly dependent on the time-averaged local concentration of solid particles and is therefore influenced by these hydrodynamic characteristics. Almost all the heat transfer models require information on solid concentration. The reader is referred to Chapter 19 of this book for more detailed discussion of the hydrodynamics, and... 

Since gas density is usually negligible compared to solid density, pb is essentially equal to the mass concentration of solid per unit mixture volume. Some examples of this type of correlation, for convective heat transfer at vertical walls of fast fluidized beds, are given below. Due to accumulating evidence that the vertical size of the heat transfer surface affects the average the correlations are divided with regard to short or long surfaces. 

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