CFD Analysis Of The Pressure Drop And Fluid Flied In Fixed Bed

Fixed bed technology was used in a wide variety of process industry. Thepressure drop and fluid flied in fixed bed are important parameters to evaluate itsperformance. Predicting the pressure drop and fluid flied accurately is meaningful toits design and operation.In this paper, Fluent6.3was used to investigate the pressure drop and the flowflied, while PFC3D was used to generate random fixed bed models. CFD simulationswere performed at Reynolds number of (Red=1-2200) and inlet velocity, particle size,wall friction and feed distribution were investigated respectively. The results showed,under different range of inlet velocity, the pressure drop got by CFD simulation agreewith different empirical equations. Large diameter particles made the peaks of radialvoid fraction profile and axial velocity distribution move toward the center of fixedbed. When D43was inputted as the effect diameter in the semi-empirical equations, theresulting predictions agree better with CFD predictions. At low Reynolds number,when the confined wall was assumed to be slipping wall, the velocity of fluid near thewall increased sharply and the pressure drop decreased apparently (20%). With theincrease of Reynolds number, the influence of the wall friction can be ignored；Withthe same mean superficial velocity, the pressure drop is same. The distribution of feedis mainly decided by the structure of fixed bed. This paper contributed to the deepunderstanding of the factors influenced pressure drop and flow flied in fixed bed andput guideline for the design and operation of it.