Study on the solid-liquid suspension behavior in a tank stirred by the long-short blades impeller

We investigated the solid–liquid suspension characteristics in the tank with a liquid height/tank diameter ratio of 1.5 stirred by a novel long-short blades(LSB) impeller by the Euler granular flow model coupled with the standard k–ε turbulence model. After validation of the local solid holdup by experiments,numerical predictions have been successfully used to explain the influences of impeller rotating speed,particle density, particle size, liquid viscosity and initial solid loading on the solid suspension behavior,i.e. smaller particles with lower density are more likely to be suspended evenly in the liquid with higher liquid viscosity. At a low impeller rotating speed(N), increase in N leads to an obvious improvement in the solid distribution homogeneity. Moreover, the proposed LSB impeller has obvious advantages in the uniform distribution of the solid particles compared with single Rushton turbine(RT), dual RT impellers or CBY hydrofoil impeller under the same power consumption.

Numerical simulations of high pressure carbon dioxide fluid fluidized beds

Hydrodynamics of carbon dioxide fluid-particle mixtures are predicted using a low density ratio-based kinetic theory of granular flow in high pressure carbon dioxide fluid fluidized beds.A coexistence of particle waves and particle aggregates exists along bed height.The threshold to identify the occurrence of particle aggregates is suggested based on standard deviation of solid volume fractions in aggregative fluidization.The existence time fractions and frequencies of particle aggregates are predicted along axial direction.The effect of carbon dioxide fluid temperature and pressure on volume fraction and velocity distributions are analyzed at different inlet carbon dioxide velocities and particle densities in high pressure carbon dioxide fluidized beds.Simulated results indicate that the carbon dioxide-particles fluidization transits from particulate to aggregative states with the increase of inlet carbon dioxide ve-locities.The computed fluid volume fractions and heterogeneity indexes are close to the measurements in a high pressure carbon dioxide fluidized bed.