COMPUTATIONAL STUDY OF THE MULTIPHASE FLOW IN THE FLUIDISED BED EQUIPMENT

Although the fluid bed technology has been successfully applied in the coating of particulate solids, some problems like agglomeration and spray-drying still remain unresolved. In order to understand the fluidisation hydrodynamics of a specific fluid bed operation, it is essential to assess the distribution of fluidising air and particles in the fluid bed. In this research, CFD was used to model the airflow and particle trajectories inside a Glatt GPCG-1 fluidised bed coater. The multiphase Eulerian model was used to predict the flow behaviour of the particles and the momentum exchange coefficients were calculated by means of the models of Syamlal-O’Brien, Wen and Yu, and Gidaspow. Good agreement could be observed between simulation and experimental PEPT results.