Computational fluid dynamics for dense gas–solid fluidized beds: a multi-scale modeling strategy

Dense gas–particle flows are encountered in a variety of industrially important processes for large scale production of fuels, fertilizers and base chemicals. The scale-up of these processes is often problematic, which can be related to the intrinsic complexities of these flows which are unfortunately not yet fully understood despite significant efforts made in both academic and industrial research laboratories. In dense gas–particle flows both (effective) fluid–particle and (dissipative) particle–particle interactions need to be accounted for because these phenomena, to a large extent, govern the prevailing flow phenomena, i.e. the formation and evolution of heterogeneous structures. These structures have significant impact on the quality of the gas–solid contact and as a direct consequence thereof strongly affect the performance of the process. Due to the inherent complexity of dense gas-particles flows, we have adopted a multi-scale modeling approach in which both fluid–particle and particle–particle interactions can be properly accounted for. The idea is essentially that fundamental models, taking into account the relevant details of fluid–particle (lattice Boltzmann model (LBM)) and particle–particle (discrete particle model (DPM)) interactions, are used to develop closure laws to feed continuum models which can be used to compute the flow structures on a much larger (industrial) scale. Our multi-scale approach (see Fig. 1) involves the LBM, the DPM, the continuum model based on the kinetic theory of granular flow, and the discrete bubble model. In this paper we give an overview of the multi-scale modeling strategy, accompanied by illustrative computational results for bubble formation. In addition, areas which need substantial further attention will be highlighted.