Fluidization and Transport of Vibrated Granular Matter:A Review of Landmark and Recent Contributions

We present a short retrospective review of the existing literature about the dynamics of(dry)granular matter under the effect of vibrations.The main objective is the development of an integrated resource where vital information about past findings and recent discoveries is provided in a single treatment.Special attention is paid to those works where successful synthetic routes to as-yet unknown phenomena were identified.Such landmark results are analyzed,while smoothly blending them with a history of the field and introducing possible categorizations of the prevalent dynamics.Although no classification is perfect,and it is hard to distillate general properties out of specific observations or realizations,two possible ways to interpret the existing results are defined according to the type of forcing or the emerging(ensuing)regime of motion.In particular,first results concerning the case where vibrations and gravity are concurrent(vertical shaking)are examined,then the companion situation with vibrations perpendicular to gravity(horizontal shaking)is described.Universality classes are introduced as follows:(1)Regimes where sand self-organizes leading to highly regular geometrical“pulsating”patterns(thin layer case);(2)Regimes where the material undergoes“fluidization”and develops an internal multicellular convective state(tick layers case);(3)Regimes where the free interface separating the sand from the overlying gas changes inclination or develops a kind a patterned configuration consisting of stable valleys and mountains or travelling waves;(4)Regimes where segregation is produced,i.e.,particles of a given size tend to be separated from the other grains(deep containers).Where possible,an analogy or parallelism is drawn with respect to the companion field of fluid-dynamics for which the assumption of“continuum”can be applied.

Extending homogeneous fluidization flow regime of Geldart-A particles by exerting axial uniform and steady magnetic field

The homogeneous/particulate fluidization flow regime is particularly suitable for handling the various gas–solid contact processes encountered in the chemical and energy industry.This work aimed to extend such a regime of Geldart-A particles by exerting the axial uniform and steady magnetic field.Under the action of the magnetic field,the overall homogeneous fluidization regime of Geldart-A magnetizable particles became composed of two parts:inherent homogeneous fluidization and newly-created magnetic stabilization.Since the former remained almost unchanged whereas the latter became broader as the magnetic field intensity increased,the overall homogeneous fluidization regime could be extended remarkably.As for Geldart-A nonmagnetizable particles,certain amount of magnetizable particles had to be premixed to transmit the magnetic stabilization.Among others,the mere addition of magnetizable particles could broaden the homogeneous fluidization regime.The added content of magnetizable particles had an optimal value with smaller/lighter ones working better.The added magnetizable particles might raise the ratio between the interparticle force and the particle gravity.After the magnetic field was exerted,the homogeneous fluidization regime was further expanded due to the formation of magnetic stabilization flow regime.The more the added magnetizable particles,the better the magnetic performance and the broader the overall homogeneous fluidization regime.Smaller/lighter magnetizable particles were preferred to maximize the magnetic performance and extend the overall homogeneous fluidization regime.This phenomenon could be ascribed to that the added magnetizable particles themselves became more Geldart-A than-B type as their density or size decreased.

Behavior and mechanism of pre-oxidation improvement on fluidization in the fluidized reduction of titanomagnetite

The direct reduction process is an important development direction of low-carbon ironmaking and efficient comprehensive utilization of poly-metallic iron ore,such as titanomagnetite.However,the defluidization of reduced iron particles with a high metallization degree at a high temperature will seriously affect the operation of fluidized bed reduction.Coupling the pre-oxidation enhancing reduction and the particle surface modification of titanomagnetite,the behavior and mechanism of pre-oxidation improvement on fluidization in the fluidized bed reduction of titanomagnetite are systematically studied in this paper.Pre-oxidation treatment of titanomagnetite can significantly lower the critical stable reduction fluidization gas velocity to 0.17 m/s,which is reduced by 56%compared to that of titanomagnetite reduction without pre-oxidation,while achieving a metallization degree of>90%,Corresponding to the different reduction fluidization behaviors,three pre-oxidation operation regions have been divided,taking oxidation degrees of 26%and 86%as the boundaries.Focusing on the particle surface morphology evolution in the pre-oxidation-reduction process,the relationship between the surface morphology of pre-oxidized ore and the reduced iron with fluidization properties is built.The improving method of pre-oxidation on the reduction fluidization provides a novel approach to prevent defluidization by particle surface modification,especially for the fluidized bed reduction of poly-metallic iron ore.

A developed transient gas-liquid-solid flow model with hydrate phase transition for solid fluidization exploitation of marine natural gas hydrate reservoirs

The multiphase flow characteristic is one of the most concerning problems during solid fluidization exploitation of marine natural gas hydrate reservoirs.In this research,a new transient gas-liquid-solid multiphase flow model with hydrate phase transition was developed.Meanwhile,this model considered the coupling relationship among convective heat transfer,hydrate dynamic decomposition,and multi-phase flow.The model can simulate the change of flow pattern from solid-liquid to gas-liquid-solid flow,and describe the distribution character of volume fraction of phase,wellbore temperature and pressure,and hydrate decomposition rate during transportation.The simulation results indicate that the hydrate decomposition region in the wellbore gradually expands,but the hydrate decomposition rate gradually decreases during the solid fluidization exploitation of hydrate.When mining time lasts for 4 h,and the bottom hole pressure decreases by about 0.4 MPa.Increasing NaCl concentration in seawater helps expand hydrate decomposition regions and improves the wellbore hydrate decomposition rate.When the Nacl mass fraction in seawater reaches 15%,it will raise the hydrate decomposition regions to the whole wellbore.In addition,the higher the wellhead backpressure,the lower the decomposition area and decomposition rate of hydrate in the wellbore.When wellhead backpressure reaches 2 MPa,the volume fraction of gas near the wellhead will reduce to about 12%.This work is expected to provide a theoretical basis for the development of marine hydrate reservoirs.

Fluidization characteristics of magnetic particles and determination of stable fluidization zone in magnetically fluidized bed

To determine and calculate the stable fluidization zone in a magnetically fluidized bed, the fluidization characteristics of magnetic particles are investigated. Four kinds of magnetic particles with different average diameters, ranging from 231 to 512 μm, are fluidized in the presence of magnetic fields with specified values of the intensity in the range of zero to 7330 A/m, and the particle fluidization curves are plotted. For marking the stable fluidization zone in the curves, the minimum bubbling velocities of particles are measured by the pressure-drop fluctuation. Based on the fluidization curves, the influences of the average particle diameter and magnetic field intensity on the zone are analyzed and discussed. A correlation to determine the stable fluidization zone is derived from the experimental data, using three dimensionless numbers, i. e., the ratio of magnetic potential to gravity potential, the Reynolds number and the Archimedes number. Compared with available data reported, it is shown that the correlation is more simplified to predict relative parameters for the bed operating in the state of stable fluidization under reasonable conditions.

Fluidization thermal decomposition of sodium fluosilicate

To break through the thermodynamic limitation that sodium fluosilicate only can be completely decomposed at high temperature,the technology of pre-decomposition under SiF_(4) atmosphere and deep decomposition under air condition at lower temperature was developed.The hydrolysis reaction of sodium fluosilicate can be effectively restrained when drying under vacuum or low temperature.Thermal decomposition results of sodium fluosilicate indicate that temperature has a very significant effect on its decomposition.The decomposition ratio can reach 79.4%at 600℃ for 1 h,and 99.6% at 700℃ for 1 h under air condition,respectively.Gas velocity and the type of inert gas have no significant effect on its decomposition.Fine particles affect its decomposition performance due to agglomeration,while coarse particles have good thermal decomposition performance without significant differences.The decomposition reaction process in fluidized bed satisfies the classical Avrami Erofe'EV model,with the reaction order of 1.5 and the activation energy of 61.35 kJ·mol^(-1).

Effects of particle type on the particle fluidization and distribution in a liquid–solid circulating fluidized bed boiler

A liquid-solid circulating fluidized bed boiler is designed and built for visualization research by applying the fluidized bed heat transfer and fouling prevention technology to the water side of the boiler. Four types of engineering plastic particles with different physical properties are selected as the solid working media. The effect of particle types on the fluidization and distribution of particles in the boiler is investigated under different feedwater flow rates and amount of added particles by using the charge couple device image measurement and acquisition system. The results show that all kinds of particles can't be normally fluidized and accumulate in the drum at low amount of added particles and feedwater flow rate. The particles with great density and low sphericity are more likely to accumulate. The average solid holdup in the riser tubes increases with the increase in feedwater flow rate and the amount of added particles. The non-uniform degree of particle distribution in the riser tubes generally decreases with the increase in feedwater flow rate and the amount of added particles. The particles with small density and settling velocity have high average solid holdup in the riser tubes under close sphericity. In generally,the smaller the density and settling velocity, the more uniform the particle distribution in the riser tubes.Three-dimensional diagrams of the non-uniform degree of particle distribution in the riser tubes of the boiler are established.

Validation of Dimensionless Parameters for Distinguishing between Homogeneous and Bubbling Fluidizations

The difference between homogeneous and bubbling fluidization behaviors has been studied for the past 70 years, where several researchers have reported on the influence of interparticle forces in fluidization. Although interparticle forces such as van der Waals forces are evident in a real system, these forces are not the determinant in homogeneous fluidization, which can be simulated without any interparticle forces. In our previous study, the difference in fundamental mechanisms of the two fluidization states was analytically determined with a dimensionless gravity term, comprising the Reynolds number, Archimedes number, and density ratio. Nevertheless, some researchers insist that interparticle forces are dominant and a hydrodynamic force is not dominant. In this study, a dimensional analysis was applied to obtain a dominant parameter for distinguishing two fluidizations. Furthermore, some parameters were examined by comparing the experimental data in previous studies. The results indicated that hydrodynamic force is the dominant factor and the dimensionless gravity term is the dominant parameter in differentiating the two fluidized states.

Fluidization: An Important Process in the Formation of the Qiyugou Au-bearing Breccia Pipes in Central China

Fluidization processes based on experiments are reviewed to gain some useful insights and comparisons with those that occur in hydrothermal systems. Field and petrographic work, and microscope observation were carried out on samples from the Qiyugou Au-bearing breccia pipes from the East Qinling region, Henan Province. Evidence from macro- and micro-textures suggests that the style of breccias in the Qiyugou area can be grouped into three types： （1） jigsaw fit-stockwork texture, in which the interval between clasts is marked by fractures or filled with calcite or quartz veins; （2） larger breccias that are supported by smaller breccias, rock flour and alteration materials; in this type clasts moved over short distances, creating open spaces; （3） fluidized texture, where the clasts of different lithologies have rounded shapes. These observations are compared with those resulting from experiments on fluidization processes. The results of this comparison suggest that fluidization is an important geological process in the formation of the Qiyugou Au-bearing breccia pipes and gold mineralization. In addition, fluidization processes such as expansion, bubbling, slugging, channeling and spouting must have contributed to the formation of the pipes and were conducive to the development of gold mineralization. In the Qiyugou breccia pipes, gold mineralization occurs as disseminations, in stockwork veins, and open space infills. The ore zones form subparallel sheets that are nearly perpendicular to the walls of the pipes.

The Ejffect of Vertical Internal Baffles on Fluidization Hydrodynamics and Grain Drying Characteristics

The effect of vertical internal baffles on the particle mixing and graindrying characteristics in a batch fluidized bed column is investigated. Experimental work wascarried out in a 3m high rectangular fluidized bed dryer of cross sectional area of 0.15 m x 0.61 mat different operating conditions using paddy, a group D particle, as the fluidizing material. Theresults of the study showed that the fluidized bed dryer system with vertical internal baffles gavebetter particle mixing effect in the bed of particles than that without vertical internal baffles.This is due to the fact that the vertical internal baffle act as gas bubble breakers by breaking upthe large gas bubbles into smaller ones. The smaller bubbles cause a more vigorous mixing in the bedof particles before finally erupting at the bed surface. This improves the contacting efficiencyand enhanced the heat and mass transfer of the fluidized bed system. Thus a higher drying rate wasobtained in the falling rate period because the higher contacting efficiency increases theevaporation rate at the particle surface. However, the drying rate in the diffusion region showslittle improvement because the moisture diffusivity does not depend on the contacting efficiency.The fluidized bed dryer with vertical internal baffles could therefore be used in the initial rapiddrying stage in a two stage drying strategy for paddy. The insertion of vertical internal bafflesinto a fluidized bed system improves the processing of Group D particles in a fluidized bed systemespecially if the system is large in scale.

Extending the EMMS/bubbling model to fluidization of binary particle mixture: Formulation and steady-state validation

The EMMS/bubbling model originally proposed for fluidization of monodisperse particles is extended to fluidization of binary particle mixture in this study.The dense and dilute phases are considered to comprise of two types of particles differing in size and/or density.Governing equations and the stability condition are then formulated and solved by using an optimization numerical scheme.The effects of bubble diameter are first investigated and a suitable bubble diameter correlation is chosen.Preliminary validation for steady state behavior shows the extended model can fairly capture the overall hydrodynamic behaviors in terms of volume fraction of bubbles and average bed voidage for both monodisperse and binary particle systems.This encourages us to integrate this model with CFD for more validations in the future.

Effect of elevated temperature and silica sand particle size on minimum fluidization velocity in an atmospheric bubbling fluidized bed

The impact of temperature and particle size on minimumfluidizing velocity was studied and analyzed in a small pilot scale of bubbling fluidized bed reactor.This study was devoted to providing some data about fluidization to the literature under high temperature conditions.The experiments were carried out to evaluate the minimum fluidizing velocity over a vast range of temperature levels from 20℃ to 850℃ using silica sand with a particle size of 300-425μm,425-500μm,500-600μm,and 600-710μm.Furthermore,the variation in the minimumfluidized voidage was determined experimentally at the same conditions.The experimental data revealed that the Umf directly varied with particle size and inversely with temperature,whileεmf increases slightly with temperature based on the measurements of height at incipient fluidization.However,for all particle sizes used in this test,temperatures above 700℃ has a marginal effect on Umf.The results were compared with many empirical equations,and it was found that the experimental result is still in an acceptable range of empirical equations used.In which,our findings are not well predicted by the widely accepted correlations reported in the literature.Therefore,a new predicted equation has been developed that also accounts for the affecting of mean particle size in addition to other parameters.A good mean relative deviation of 5.473% between the experimental data and the predicted values was estimated from the correlation of the effective dimensionless group.Furthermore,the experimental work revealed that the minimum fluidizing velocity was not affected by the height of the bed even at high temperature.

Fluidization behavior and reduction kinetics of pre-oxidized magnetite-based iron ore in a hydrogen-induced fluidized bed

The influence of different pre-oxidation temperatures and pre-oxidation degrees on the reduction and fluidization behaviors of magnetite-based iron ore was investigated in a hydrogen-induced fluidized bed.The raw magnetite-based iron ore was pre-oxidized at 800 and1000℃ for a certain time to reach a partly oxidation and deeply oxidation state.The structure and morphology of the reduced particles were analyzed via optical microscope and scanning electron microscopy(SEM).The reaction kinetic mechanism was determined based on the double-logarithm analysis.The results indicate that the materials with higher oxidation temperature and wider particle size range show better fluidization behaviors.The lower oxidation temperature is more beneficial for the reduction rate,especially in the later reduction stage.The pre-oxidation degree shows no obvious influence on the fluidization and reduction behaviors.Based on the kinetic analysis,the reduction progress can be divided into three stages.The reduction mechanism was discussed combing the surface morphology and phase structure.

Review on the nanoparticle fluidization science and technology

Gas fluidization has an ability to turn static particles to fluid-like dense flow, which allows greatly improved heat transfer among porous powders and highly efficient solid processing to become reality. As the rising star of current scientific research, some nanoparticles can also be fluidized in the form of agglomerates, with sizes ranging from tens to hundreds of microns. Herein, we have reviewed the recent progress on nanomaterial agglomeration and their fluidization behavior, the assisted techniques to enhance the fluidization of nanomaterials,including some mechanical measures, external fields and improved gas injections, as well as their effects on solid fluidization and mixing behaviors. Most of these techniques are effective in breaking large agglomerates and promoting particulate fluidization, meanwhile, the solid mixing is intensified under assisted fluidization. The applications of nanofluidization in nanostructured material production and sustainable chemical industry are further presented. In summary, the fluidization science of multidimensional, multicomponent and multifunctional particles, their multi-phase characterization, and the guideline of fluidized bed coupled process are prerequisites for the sustainable development of fluidized bed based materials, energy and chemical industry.

EMMS-based modeling of gas-solid generalized fluidization:Towards a unified phase diagram

Hydrodynamic features of gas-solid generalized fluidization can be well expressed in the form of phase diagrams,which are important for engineering design.Mesoscale structure presents almost universally in generalized fluidization and should be considered in such phase diagrams.However,current phase diagrams were mainly proposed for cocurrent upward flow according to experimental data or empirical correlations with homogeneous assumption.The energy-minimization multiscale(EMMS)model has shown the capability of capturing mesoscale structure in generalized fluidization,so EMMS-based phase diagrams of generalized fluidization were proposed in this article,which describe more reasonable global hydrodynamics over all regimes including the important engineering phenomena of choking and flooding.These characteristics were also found in discrete particle simulation under various conditions.For wider range of application,the typical hydrodynamic parameters of the phase diagrams were correlated to non-dimensional numbers reflecting the effects of material properties and operation conditions.This study thus shows a possible route to develop a unified phase diagram in the future.

Assessment of the TFM in predicting the onset of turbulent fluidization

Accurate prediction of the onset of turbulent fluidization still remains elusive owing to the dependence of the transition velocity on several factors including measurement methods and interpretation of results. In this work, numerical simulations using the two fluid model (TFM) are performed in an attempt to predict the regime change reported by Gopalan etal.(2016) in a small scale pseudo-2D gas-solid fluidized bed containing Geldart D particles. Various time and frequency domain analyses were applied on predicted absolute and differential pressure time series data to reveal the bed dynamics. Numerical predictions of the transition velocity, Uc are in reasonably good agreement with experimental results from the small scale challenge problem. The literature correlations completely fail to predict the transition velocity for the system considered in this work. This work thus provides a different approach for validating the CFD model against experimental measurements.

Characterizing the catalyst fluidization with field synergy to improve the amine absorption for CO2 capture

There are great interests to capture the CO2 to control the greenhouse gas emission.Amine absorption of CO2 is being taken as an effective way to capture CO2 in industry.However,the amine absorption of CO2 is cost-ineffective due to great energy consumption and solution consumption.In order to reduce the capture cost,catalyst fluidization is proposed here to intensify the mass transfer and heat transfer.Catalyst fluidization with field synergy and DFT model is developed by incorporating the effects of catalyst reaction kinetics,drag force and multi-field into the mass transfer,heat transfer,fluid flow and catalyst collision.Experiments with an improved distributor are performed well to validate the model.The reaction kinetics is determined by the DFT simulation and experiment.The mass transfer coefficient in the fluidized reactor is identified as 17%higher than the conventional packed reactor.With the field synergy of catalyst fluidization,the energy consumption for CO2 desorption is reduced by 9%.Stepwise operation and inclination reactor are used to improve catalyst fluidization process.

Fluidization characteristics of different sizes of quartz particles in the fluidized bed

Fluidization characteristics of quartz particles with different sizes are experimentally investigated in a fluidized bed with an inner diameter of 300 mm and height of 8250 mm.Results show that the average solid holdup increases with the increase in superficial gas velocity and the decrease in initial solid holdup in the dense zone of the fluidized bed.The average cross-sectional solid holdup decreases with increasing bed height and superficial gas velocity.The bed expansion coefficient increases with the increase in superficial gas velocity and the decrease in solid holdup.Correlations of average solid holdup,average cross-sectional solid holdup and bed expansion coefficient are also established and discussed.These correlations can provide guidelines for better understanding of the fluidization characteristics.

Effect of agitation on the characteristics of air dense medium fluidization

In order to study the effect of agitation on the characteristics of air dense medium fluidization, we designed and constructed an agitation device. Analyses were then conducted on the fluidization characteristics curves, the bed density stability and the average bubble rise velocity Uaunder different agitation conditions. The results indicated that a lower bed pressure drop(without considering lower gas velocity in a fixed bed stage) and higher minimum fluidized velocity are achieved with increasing agitation speed.The height d(distance between the lower blades and air distribution plate) at which the agitation paddle was located had a considerable effect on the stability of the bed density at 9.36 cm/s < U < 10.70 cm/s. The higher the value of d, the better the stability, and the standard deviation of the bed density fluctuation r dropped to 0.0364 g/cm^3 at the ideal condition of d = 40 mm. The agitation speed also had a significant influence on the fluidization performance, and r was only 0.0286 g/cm^3 at an agitation speed of N = 75 r/min. The average bubble rise velocity decreased significantly with increasing agitation speed under the operating condition of 1.50 cm/s < U–U_(mf)< 3.50 cm/s. This shows that appropriate agitation contributes to a significant improvement in the fluidization quality in a fluidized bed, and enhances the separation performance of a fluidized bed.

Characteristics of fluidization and dry-beneficiation of a wide-size-range medium-solids fluidized bed

Wide-size-range medium-solids are used in a modularized coal beneficiation demonstration system with a gas-solid fluidized bed. The characteristics of fluidization and dry-beneficiation of the medium solids were studied. The numerical simulation results show that 0.15–0.06 mm fine magnetite powder can decrease the disturbances caused by the bubbles. This is beneficial to the uniformity of the gas-solid interactions and thus to the uniformity and stability of the bed density and height. The experimental results show that, with an increase in the fine coal content in medium solids, both the fluidization quality and the beneficiation performance of the bed decreased gradually. When the fine coal content was no more than 13%, a relatively high superficial gas velocity increased the beneficiation efficiency. When the content was more than 13%, part of the fine coal was separated, leading to product layers. The separation efficiency was therefore gradually decreased. The models for predicting the bed density standard deviation and the probable error, E, value were both proposed. The E value can reach to 0.04–0.07 g/cm^3 under the optimized experimental parameters. This work provides a foundation for the adjustment of the bed density and the separation performance of the modularized 40–60 ton per hour dry coalbeneficiation industrial system.