Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Fluidized beds are widely used in many energy and industrial processes, including a number of special interest in Canada. However, the design and scale-up of fluidized beds are constrained by a lack of fundamental knowledge and accurate experimental data. Fluidized beds are opaque, abrasive, and chaotic, making experimental measurements extremely difficult. In addition, there are several flow regimes, separated by rather indistinct transitions, and industrial fluidized beds are extremely large in size, usually operating at high temperature and pressure. A number of novel experimental techniques have been developed for the study of fluid-particle systems in recent years, with Canadians among the pioneers in their exploration and application. These innovative techniques offer valuable and promising methods for deriving useful information on the mechanics of fluidization, but each measurement technique only covers specific data, for example local particle velocity but not local voidage. Moreover, each experimental fluidized bed system (apparatus, instrumentation and particles) examined differs in multiple respects from those investigated by every other laboratory. This proposal would lead to the detailed design and fabrication of a unique gas-fluidized bed apparatus which would travel to different sites inside Canada and beyond, accompanied by the same particles, flow instrumentation, data acquisition system and operator. Measurements would then be obtained under a limited number of identical flow conditions, deploying the specific measurement technique(s) of each research group. The resulting dataset would: (a) provide direct comparison of different measurement techniques where these overlap; (b) facilitate evaluation of several types of miniature probes that can be inserted into industrial-scale fluidized bed reactors; (c) constitute a unique data set for evaluation of CFD, other mechanistic hydrodynamic models, and empirical correlations; (d) provide hydrodynamic data which may be used in conjunction with pilot data for testing of fluidized bed reactor models. Five groups at the forefront of gas-fluidization research in Canada would collaborate actively in the research, in cooperation with several leading international groups.