Transition to turbulent fluidization in a binary solids fluidized bed

This paper presents a study on the transition velocity from bubbling to turbulent fluidization in a binary solids fluidized bed. Experiments were carried out with two kinds of binary solids mixtures with FCC as fine particles and silica sands as coarse particles. The onset velocity to turbulent fluidization, U_c, determined by the measurement of pressure fluctuations, was found to increase with increasing the fraction of coarse/heavy solids. By introducing an equivalent particle diameter and an equivalent particle density, the results obtained in this study can properly be described by a general correlation of U_c proposed by Cai and co-workers (1989) for mono-density particles with relatively narrow size distribution.