Thermal and material transport in nonisothermal packed beds

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The turbulent transport of mass, energy, and momentum was studied in a 4 in. diameter cylindrical column packed with 0.3 in. diameter stoneware spheres. Helium was used as a tracer material, with air as the mainstream fluid. The concentration of tracer present, the temperature, and the velocity of the gas were measured at several axial and radial increments. These data were analyzed numerically to obtain the radial component of the effective thermal conductivity and the radial component of the mass‐dispersion coefficient as functions of radial position. Experimental conditions covered isothermal determinations at room temperature and nonisothermal determinations in which a temperature gradient was established in the radial direction. Significant differences were found between the isothermal and strongly nonisothermal results, primarily for the velocity profiles and thermal conductivities. Correlations were developed for the local values of the parameters.