A review of correlations to model the packing structure and effective thermal conductivity in packed beds of mono-sized spherical particles

This paper presents a review of the literature describing the packing structure and effective thermal conductivity of randomly packed beds consisting of mono-sized particles. In this study particular attention was given to the packing structure (porosity, coordination number, and contact angles) and heat transfer by solid conduction, gas conduction, contact area, surface roughness, as well as thermal radiation. New methods to analyse the models were developed giving new insights into the shortcomings of the correlations to predict and define the packing structure, as well as to simulate the effective thermal conductivity in the near-wall region. This information is of particular importance in the design and operation of high temperature packed bed nuclear reactors.