Fluidization characteristics of sawdust in a cold flow fluidized bed

India has abundance of biomass such as rice husk, bagasse, wheat straw, sawdust etc. which is used as a main or auxiliary fuel in the fluidized bed combustor, gasifier and pyrolizer. Design of such fluidized bed equipments require the knowledge of minimum fluidization velocity (U_mf), complete fluidization velocity (U_cf) and transport disengagement height (TDH). The present work reports the fluidization characteristic, U_mf, U_cf and TDH of the individual size groups of sawdust and mixture thereof. The results indicate that the U_mf and U_cf have a tendency to increase with increase in particle diameter, however the TDH shows the reverse trend. The sawdust particle size of 925 and 1200 ​μm showed significant difference between their U_mf and U_cf, an essential parameter for controlled fluidization. Based on the experimental work new correlations for the prediction of U_mf, U_cf and TDH for sawdust sample are proposed. The proposed correlations of U_mf, U_cf and TDH are in good agreement with experimental values and the deviations found within the range of nearly ±10% for all the samples.