STABILITY ANALYSIS OF DRAFT TUBE SPOUTED BED USING PRESSURE FLUCTUATION ANALYSIS

Spouted bed is widely used in number of industries such as food, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, fertilizer, waste treatment, gasification etc. Spouted bed is particularly very useful in efficient drying, coating, mixing, granulation and catalytic conversion for its unique hydrodynamics which favor good heat and mass transfer. Use of draft tube in spouted bed adds further advantage to manipulate solid circulation rates and also leads to favorable hydrodynamics. Experiments were carried out at different gas flow rates in a draft tube spouted bed using argon and nitrogen as spouting gases at various bed heights and draft tube bottom clearances. Experiments were aimed to determine the condition at which stability is achieved. Standard deviation of pressure fluctuation is obtained to determine the stable spouting velocity and draft tube bottom clearance for various draft tube size. Findings report here critical aspects to achieve higher stability in drat tube spouted beds.