A Study of the Impact of Mesh Configuration on Three-Dimensional Fluidized Bed Simulations

The objective of this work is to study the influence of computational grid on the accuracy and efficiency of fluidized bed simulations. Due to their enhanced mixing and heat transfer characteristics, fluidized bed systems have gained attention in a wide range of industrial applications, including power generation, fuel synthesis and pharmaceuticals. Traditionally these systems are developed through extensive experimental work. Laboratory-scale prototypes often exhibit different flow characteristics than industrial-scale systems, making design and optimization even more difficult and costly. As a result, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has become a useful tool for design and optimization of these systems. An important issue in CFD analysis of gas-solid flows in fluidized beds is the influence of mesh on the results.;The present study focuses on analyzing the reliability of fluidized bed simulations as affected by mesh configuration and resolution. Several approaches to constructing the computational grid are discussed and the influence of mesh configuration on simulation performance and accuracy is demonstrated. Given its capacity to handle both structured and unstructured grids, cases are simulated via the open-source platform OpenFOAM. The accuracy of the predictions given by OpenFOAM are validated against experimental data and compared with results from MFiX, the National Energy Technology Laboratory CFD platform. Grid resolution studies are performed, and the computational performance of various grid arrangements are evaluated.