Investigation on the influence of particle size and porosity on solid phase fluidization and heat transfer in carbon fibre porous media

Abstract

In this paper, the 3D pore structure was reconstructed and solid phase fluidization in porous media was investigated. Based on the two fluid model, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of gas–solid fluidization was established and the influence of particle size and porosity were investigated. When porosity was constant, during the fluidization process, the particle velocity and solid concentration standard deviation gradually decreased, and the bed height increased. At the same time, the smaller the particle size was, the smaller the solid concentration standard deviation was, the faster the bed height increased, and the more the particle temperature decreased. Based on the fixed value of particle size, when studying the effect of porosity on fluidization, it was found that with the enhancement of solid-phase fluidization, particle velocity, solid concentration standard deviation, and particle temperature decreased, and bed height increased. Moreover, when porosity was large, particle velocity decreased rapidly, and solid concentration standard deviation reached a smaller minimum value, which took a longer time. Within the same time, the particle temperature also decreased less.