Measurements and particle resolved modelling of the thermo- and fluid dynamics of a packed bed

The objective of this study is to investigate experimentally and numerically into heat-up, drying and pyrolysis of a packed bed consisting of large single particles. The novelty of the current approach is that the numerical model contrary to continuum mechanic approaches considers a packed bed as an ensemble of a finite number of particles, which may have different material properties or sizes. The heat-up, drying and pyrolysis process of each particle is described sufficiently accurate by a set of one-dimensional and transient differential conservation equations for mass and energy. Applying this model to all particles, including interactions between them, of a packed bed forms the entire backed bed process as a sum of individual particle processes. The arrangement of particles within a bed defines a void space between the particles. The flow through the void space of a packed bed is modelled as a flow through a porous media taking into account interaction between the solid and the gaseous phase by heat and mass transfer. Experiments for drying and pyrolysis of a packed bed were carried out for validation in a temperature range of T=120–530 °C. The temperatures and the mass loss due to drying and pyrolysis were recorded during the experiments. The measured mass loss of the packed bed due to drying were well predicted by the constant evaporation temperature model of the particles and thus, indicating, that the drying process is transport limited by heat transfer for large wood particles in a temperature range of T=120–530 °C. A comparison between experiments and predictions of pyrolysis yielded reasonable agreement for temperatures above T=300 °C. For temperatures of T≈200 °C the deviations were not acceptable. However, the results show, that a particle resolved approach is well suited to describe packed bed processes.