Fixed bed structures for mono and poly-disperse mixtures of spherical particles using different loading methods
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2019 Fixed beds comprising of monodsiperse and polydisperse spherical particles were generated using discrete element method (DEM) to study the impact of varying loading methods on the bed structure. The model used generated reproducible structures with good match between the predicted voidage profiles and correlations from literature. Three different loading methodologies-uniform, sock and wall were simulated by varying the initial loading positions from which the particles are introduced into the bed, with bulk voidage calculated using geometric computations and radial voidage patterns obtained by edge-based technique. Additionally, the tortuosity values were calculated for different loading strategies using the PathFinder algorithm. The bulk voidage values stabilized to 0.39 with increase in bed-particle diameter ratio. Increase in the polydispersity of the particle samples dampens the oscillations in radial voidage compared to monodisperse particle samples. Beds generated with varying loading methods demonstrated similar tortuosity values as well. For the case of polydisperse particles, particle segregation behavior varied with loading methodology employed.
