Abstract— In the present work, single-spouted fluidized bed with non-spherical particle geometries was studied using Computational Fluid Dynamics–Discrete Element Modeling (CFD-DEM) coupling technique. CFD-DEM is an effective tool for modeling multi-phase flows in industrial applications such as fluidized bed reactors, spouted bed etc. Most DEM force-displacement models are based on particles with spherical geometry while many particles encountered in nature of non-spherical geometry. Three different shapes: Cylinder, Square and Hexagon were considered and the results are matched with the circular shaped particles. Multi-sphere method is used to model the force-displacement behavior. Open source software LIGGGHTS-DEM and OpenFOAM were used to perform the simulations. It was observed that the complex interactions of the multi-sphere particles give rise to greater instability in the fluidizing bed, as seen in strong fluctuations in particle properties. Also, these particles exhibited a tendency to agglomerate, thereby offering stronger resistance to shearing flows. As per the findings, it was concluded that the particle geometry has a significant influence on the performance of the fluidizing bed; failure to accurately represent an actual particle would result in erroneous results.

Index Terms—discrete element modeling, non-spherical particles, CFD-DEM coupling, turbulence modeling

Cite: Kiran MS, Rabijit Dutta, and Pritanshu Ranjan, "Coupled CFD-DEM Simulations for Modelling Non-Spherical Particles," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 11, No. 9, pp. 698-704, September 2022. DOI: 10.18178/ijmerr.11.9.698-704

Copyright © 2022 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the article is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.