Chapter 7 - Advanced multiphase hybrid model development of fluidized bed wet granulation processes

an extended CFD-DEM model based on micropolar fluid and its application in geological engineering

Floodways, where a road embankment is permitted to be overtopped by flood water, are usually designed as broad-crested weirs. Determination of the water level above the floodway is crucial and related to road safety. Hydraulic performance of floodways can be assessed numerically using 1-D modelling or 3-D simulation using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) packages. Turbulence modelling is one of the key elements in CFD simulations. A wide variety of turbulence models are utilized in CFD packages; in order to identify the most relevant turbulence model for the case in question, 96 3-D CFD simulations were conducted using Flow-3D package, for 24 broad-crested weir configurations selected based on experimental data from a previous study. Four turbulence models (one-equation, k-ε, RNG k-ε, and k-ω) ere examined for each configuration. The volume of fluid (VOF) algorithm was adopted for free water surface determination. In addition, 24 1-D simulations using HEC-RAS-1-D were conducted for comparison with CFD results and experimental data. Validation of the simulated water free surface profiles versus the experimental measurements was carried out by the evaluation of the mean absolute error, the mean relative error percentage, and the root mean square error. It was concluded that the minimum error in simulating the full upstream to downstream free surface profile is achieved by using one-equation turbulence model with mixing length equal to 7% of the smallest domain dimension. Nevertheless, for the broad-crested weir upstream section, no significant difference in accuracy was found between all turbulence models and the one-dimensional analysis results, due to the low turbulence intensity at this part. For engineering design purposes, in which the water level is the main concern at the location of the flood way, the one-dimensional analysis has sufficient accuracy to determine the water level.

Numerical simulation of the effect of fine fraction on the flowability of powders in additive manufacturing

A pseudo-coupled DEM–non-linear PBM approach for simulating the evolution of particle size during dry milling

Influence of inclined plates on flow characteristics of a liquid-solid fluidised bed: A CFD-DEM study

Process analytical tools for monitoring, understanding, and control of pharmaceutical fluidized bed granulation: A review

A multi-objective optimization design framework integrated with CFD for the design of AUVs

CPL library — A minimal framework for coupled particle and continuum simulation

CFD–DEM modelling of particle ejection by a sensor-based automated sorter

Particle breakage in milling operations is often modeled using population balance models (PBMs). A discrete element method (DEM) model can be coupled with a PBM in order to explicitly identify the effect of material properties on breakage rate. However, the DEM-PBM framework is computationally expensive to evaluate due to high-fidelity DEM simulations. This limits its application in continuous process modeling for dynamic simulation, optimization, or control purposes. The current work proposes the use of surrogate modeling (SM) techniques to map mechanistic data obtained from DEM simulations as a function of processing conditions. To demonstrate the benefit of the SM-PBM approach in developing integrated process models for continuous pharmaceutical manufacturing, a comill-tablet press model integration utilizing the proposed framework is presented. The SM-PBM approach is in excellent agreement with the DEM-PBM approach to predict particle size distributions (PSDs) and dynamic holdup, with a maximum sum of square errors of 0.0012 for PSD in volume fraction and 0.93 for holdup in grams. In addition, the time taken to run a DEM simulation is in the order of days whereas the proposed hybrid model takes few seconds. The SM-PBM approach also enables comill-tablet press model integration to predict tablet properties such as weight and hardness. The proposed hybrid framework compares well with a DEM-PBM framework and addresses limitations on computational expense, thus enabling its use in continuous process modeling.

Granulation time in fluidized bed granulators

Review: CFD: computational fluid dynamics; 175 refs.

In Victoria, Australia, brown coal is utilised as a major source of energy for the power generation industry. Victorian and South Australian brown coals have a very high moisture content and therefore, the efficiencies of power generation in traditional pulverised fuel fired furnaces are low. Fluidised beds offer a number of advantages over conventional furnaces, leading to improvements in efficiency and environmental impact. A disadvantage with implementing fluidised bed technology is the issue of scale-up. Fluidised bed behaviour can alter significantly with changes in scale, because of their strong dependence on the bed hydrodynamics. Hence, there is a need to accurately model bed behaviour to ensure that the effect of changes in scale are well understood and will not become costly and time consuming. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques can be applied to fluidised bed systems to gain a better understanding of the hydrodynamic behaviour involved. In the past, numerical models have considered only single particle sizes due to the added complexity of interaction between particles of differing sizes and densities. Industrial fluidised beds typically contain more than one particle size and density, therefore there is a need to develop a numerical model which takes this into account. The aim of this thesis is to develop and validate CFD techniques for modelling the behaviour of a gas-solid fluidised bed containing more than one particle size and density. To provide validation data for the numerical model, physical experiments are undertaken on a small two-dimensional bubbling gas-solid fluidised bed. Mixing and segregation behaviour of different materials are investigated. The experiments demonstrate that whilst only a small proportion of the bed consists of different size/density particles, significant changes in bed behaviour are apparent. Changes in bubble rise velocity, bubble size and bubble shape are observed. A number of constitutive equations must be included in the numerical model, including relationships for the momentum transfer between various phases and solids pressure. Different combinations of these constitutive equations are investigated. A new equation for particle-particle interactions is derived and included in a CFD model. The CFD model is validated against both data in the literature and physical experiments. From the validation studies, an optimum equation set is identified. This optimum equation set produces numerical results that closely resemble experimental bed behaviour, thus bringing the goal of solving scale-up problems one step closer. The use of this type of CFD model will ultimately result in timely and cost effective solutions for both the power generation and chemical processing industries.

Development of a high-fidelity digital twin using the discrete element method for a continuous direct compression process. Part 1. Calibration workflow

The present paper studied the mixing characteristics of biomass and sands in a fluidized bed. A three dimensional model is calculated on the basis of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and the discrete element method (DEM), while the lab-scale experiments under similar conditions are conducted. To investigate the mixing behavior of biomass and sands, particle distribution, particles time averaged kinetic motion and the Lacey index are analyzed and the effects of gas velocity and biomass size are discussed. Gas velocity provides the basic motion for particle movement and biomass particles gain a lot more kinetic motion than sands due to their large size. The biomass mixing process in a horizontal direction is more sensitive to gas velocity than in a vertical direction. Biomass size could slightly affect the mixing quality and a well mixing in fluidized bed could be reached if the size of biomass to sands is smaller than 4 times.