Large Eddy Simulation (LES) Aplicado a un lecho fluidizado gas – sólido. Parte I: Reactor a escala de laboratorio

espanolLos reactores de lecho fluidizado son equipos utilizados en la industria de hidrocarburos, para procesos heterogeneos gas-solido, tanto cataliticos como no cataliticos. Las aplicaciones industriales mas importantes incluyen el cracking catalitico, combustion y/o gasificacion de carbon, biomasa y residuos solidos, entre otros. En este trabajo se estudia el comportamiento fluidodinamico gas-solido, usando tecnicas computaciones de Dinamica de Fluidos (CFD) en un lecho fluidizado a nivel laboratorio de 1 m de longitud y 5 cm de altura de lecho, se implemento la metodologia de Large Eddy simulation (LES) y mallas casi-uniformes construidas previo calculo de las micro escalas turbulentas. Las simulaciones fueron validadas con datos de la literatura, logrando describir el comportamiento de descenso de particulas (annulus) , sin necesidad de refinamiento cerca de la pared y mejorando el tiempo de computo en comparaciones con simulaciones realizadas usando RANS. EnglishThe fluidized bed reactors are commonly used in the petrochemical industry, with applications in catalytic and non-catalytic processes. An important use of this technology includes the catalytic cracking, as well as the gasification of coal, biomass and solid waste. This work studied the fluid dynamics inside a lab scale fluidized bed, which was 1 meter long with 5 cm bed height. The study was carried out using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), including the use of Large Eddy Simulation methodology (LES), in addition to the use of a quasi-uniform computational grid, which was created before the micro scale turbulence calculation. Therefore, it was possible to describe the behavior of the particles at annulus of the unit, without the need of having a refined grid near the wall. This resulted in an improvement on the required calculation time compared to the simulations that use the RANS methodology. The simulation results showed good agreement with the data reported in literature.