A computational study of the various flow regimes in pneumatic conveying of granular materials

Abstract

Gas-solid systems are commonly encountered in the chemical and petrochemical industries. Their applications include FCC. The technique of combining discrete element method (DEM) with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was applied to the numerical simulation of pneumatic conveying of granular material in both vertical and horizontal pipes. The emphasis was on reproducing computationally the different types of solid flow patterns and behaviors observed experimentally under different operating conditions. The DEM and CFD models used and their methods of implementation were described, and simulation results obtained were compared with experimental observations reported in the literature. The dispersed flow regime was dominant at high gas velocities and low solid concentrations while the plug flow regime was dominant otherwise. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the AIChE Annual Meeting and Fall Showcase (Cincinnati, OH 10/30/2005-11/4/2005).