Estudo fluidodinâmico e térmico no transportador pneumático com alimentador tipo jorro

Abstract

The pneumatic conveyor using a spouted bed as a particle feeding method has been studied in the past years in the Centro de Secagem/DEQ/UFSCar. In the literature there are some studies related to the fluid dynamics behavior of this type of conveyor, which can be found in the following works: Ferreira (1991); Ferreira e Freire (1992); Ferreira (1996), Silva (1997) e Costa, (2001). The aim of this work is: (i) to analyze the fluid dynamics behavior through experimental data obtained for the gas-solid flow in the dense and dilute phase and also, to evaluate the influence of the distance between the inlet of the contactor and the entrance of the conveyor pipe (z0); (ii) to apply the model developed by Zorana et al. (2004) for predicting the pressure, voidage, gas and solids velocity profiles, and compare the simulated and experimental results; (iii) to analyze the influence of the inlet temperature in the fluid dynamics, heat transfer and water evaporation behaviors. In this work glass beads with dp = 2.7 mm and rp = 2500 kg/m3 were used as a particulate phase. In the drying experiments water was used as an ideal suspension. The average and the standard deviation of the experimental variables were acquired using a LYNX data acquisition system and a routine made in the LabView software. It was possible to verify that the different z0 (5.0, 5.5, 6.0 e 6.5 cm) studied here influenced significantly the fluid dynamic behavior. Also, the dense and dilute regimes were identified by analyzing the experimental pressure gradients. The model used in this work was able to predict the experimental data satisfactorily. Although a significant influence of the air inlet temperature in the fluid dynamics and heat transfer behaviors was not observed in the range (80 and 100 ºC) studied here, it does affect the water evaporation rate, which was higher for the highest temperature.