Spouting Characteristics of Wet Particles in a Conical-Cylindrical Spouted Bed

Spout characteristics, such as flow pattern, minimum spouting velocity, and maximum spoutable bed height, are investigated in a wet conical-cylindrical spouted bed. Water and glass beads (Geldart D type) are adopted as the liquid and solid phases, respectively. The evolution of flow pattern of a wet spouted bed is captured by a CCD camera. The experimental results indicate that the minimum spouting velocity decreases when increasing the liquid saturation. The increase of initial bed height, particle size, or spout nozzle size leads to increased minimum spouting velocities. A correlation is formulated based on the experiments results for the prediction of minimum spouting velocities of wet spouted beds. Moreover, it is found that the maximum spoutable bed height H_max decreases as particle size or spout nozzle diameter increases. However, H_max is almost constant, approximately 1.5 times higher than that of its corresponding dry spouted bed, when increasing the liquid saturation.