Wall effects on the pressure drop in packed beds of irregularly shaped sintered ore particles

• Published in: Powder technology 2016-11, Vol.301, p.1284-1293
• Main Authors: Tian, Fu-You, Huang, Lian-Feng, Fan, Li-Wu, Qian, Hong-Liang, Yu, Zi-Tao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Packed bed; Porous media; Pressure drop; Sintered ore particle; Wall effect; Waste heat recovery
• ISSN: 0032-5910; 1873-328X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.powtec.2016.07.073

The knowledge on pressure drop over the packed layers of sintered ore particles (SOPs) is deemed essential to have a deep understanding on the flow and heat transfer in emerging vertically arranged sinter coolers for waste heat recovery. In this work, the wall effects on pressure drop over a packed bed of SOPs were studied experimentally. Experiments for SOPs with bed-to-particle diameter ratio ranging from 7 to 35 and glass beads with the ratio between 6 and 22 were performed. The results revealed that the voidage effect tends to be pronounced for relatively low ratio values, while the friction effect becomes more significant for relatively high ratio values when it is lower than 40. Comparing to the confining walls, the particle characteristics were shown to have a dominant effect on the flow regime in the voids of the SOP-filled beds, whereas an opposite comparison was observed for the smooth glass beads as a reference. The correlations for the wall corrected friction factor proposed in the literature (Exp. Heat Transfer 12 (1999) 309), with varying coefficients, fit well to predict the pressure drop through packed beds for both glass beads and SOPs with considering the wall effects. Improved correlations were also proposed for spherical particles, SOPs and their blends with fairly good predictive accuracy. [Display omitted] •The pressure drop in packed beds with sintered ore particles (SOPs) was studied.•The wall effects on the average voidage and macroscopic parameters were explored.•Flow regime in the SOP-filled beds was identified with different confining walls.•Correlations on the pressure drop were proposed by accounting for the wall effects.•The results can be used to facilitate design of vertically arranged sinter coolers.